Future's Folly
by CMK Jam-Sam
Summary: Robin finds himself twenty-four years in the future, where he meets the Next Generation, the Titans' Kids, and their disastrous lives in 2034! Now, he's determined to help them change their desolate future in the limited four days he has there...
1. Timely Travels

_**Future's Folly**_

_Chapter 1: Timely Travels_

_

* * *

_

"You can do this...you can do this...you can do this...you can do this..." the young teen murmured to himself over and over again. His red hair blent in with the reddish sky, and he wore a rather large brown cape, the hood of which was lowered.

Behind him were the torn and run down remains of what was once the city. Buildings were crushed and ruining, some already piles of rubble on the ground. The teen walked forward, in the shadows of the still standing building, but tensed as he heard footsteps. He quickly ducked into an alleyway, just as a hoard of silver, robotic humanoids marched that way.

He breathed a sigh of relief once they were gone, then looked around before he jogged across the open ground—really bad to do now, but needed to be done. Once he reached the other side, he hid in another alley, then looked around once again to be sure of no more robots.

He jogged for a few more minutes until he was in what once was the park. It took a lot of willpower to actually be there, in the open, with little to no cover. The grass was now dead and the trees leafless or broken in half. A creepy aura could be felt throughout the park. He shivered.

Yet he still walked until he reached a rather large oak tree. He looked at it, then touched it, memories flashing by. Suddenly, he could see a young boy running towards it, then around it, tagging a blonde girl. Then a raven haired girl, a few years older, ran up, giggling along with them. He shook his head, closing his eyes as he did. When he opened them, they were gone.

A sigh followed the memory, and he stood there for a moment, remembering all that had happened in the last eight years. He looked back up at the red sky, and tried to remember when it was blue, but failed. He bit his lip, then took his hand off the oak.

Then he reached for something on his belt, and pulled out a rather familiar circular object. It was different from what the villain Warp had used; it had settings on it and a blinking timer in front, which was currently blinking a mass of zeros. He set the settings on there for 01:28:49, another for 6/23/2010, and sighed again. Then he looked around, as if to say goodbye, and slammed his hand down on the contraption.

A vortex erupted from the device, quickly moving up and down his body, then consuming him, making him disappear with a bright, white flash.

What the red head didn't realize was the robotic eye retracting and zooming in on him, recording what had just happened.

Boy, was he in for it.

* * *

It was a normal day in Jump City—as normal as it could get with frequent attacks happening almost daily. There hadn't been an attack all day, so the city was definitely due for one soon.

The park was as full and lively as ever. Children laughed and played on this glorious summer day, and parents talked and smiled as they did. Picnics were set up all across the freshly watered grass. Kids played innocent and fun games like Tag and Hide and Seek. A large oak tree stood, shading the children who chose to sit and listen to the calming breeze and enjoy the relaxation of summer.

But then, a large clasp of thunder sounded, and the few children that were under the oak scattered back to their parents, frightened. Only two remained, a little blonde girl and brunette boy.

"What was that?" the girl asked.

"I don't know, Lil," the boy said back, a tad frightened.

"I think it came from back here," the girl said, peaking slowly behind the large tree. The boy grabbed her shoulder and tugged her back.

"Lil! You don't know whats back there!" he said. "It could be one of those crazy monster people from TV!"

"Oh, Rory," the girl said, "If it _was_ a monster, the Teen Titans would come and save us!"

The brunette seemed to think this over. "Mmm...okay. But if its dangerous, we run!"

"Okay, Rory!" she said, but he quickly shushed her. She nodded in affirmation, and the two tiptoed around the oak. They poked their heads to the side, where they saw a teen—about fourteen or thirteen looking—with red hair and a large, brown cape on that made him look like a Jedi, lying against the oak, a look of awe on his face. His palms were facing up and the ground beneath him was singed.

Lil blinked, then took a step forward, a twig crunching underneath her foot. She squealed, and Rory hurriedly placed a hand over her mouth. But the teen heard this, and turned his head to them. They cowered behind the tree.

"Oh, no...its okay, I won't hurt you," he said, getting up and squatting at their level. He offered them his hand—it was brown, like he'd been playing in the dirt for a while. Lil eyed the hand nervously.

"Its okay. I'm a friend, see?" he said, picking a flower out of the ground and offering it to her. She blinked, then took it from him.

"Pretty..." she breathed, watching it with interest. Rory ooo'd at it, then turned his attention back to the red head.

"You look hurt, are you okay?" he asked, noticing the rips in the teen's clothes. He shook his head.

"Nah, I'm fine," he said, smiling. Then his eyebrows raised as he thought of something. "But I _do_ need to ask you something..."

"Really?" Lil asked, looking up. "What is it?"

He dug something out of his pocket—a paper—and unfolded it. It was a very _old_ looking paper, and once unfolded, he showed it to them. It had what looked like a technological device to be installed to a wall on it, like blueprints.

"Can you direct me to where I might find something like this?" he asked.

Rory examined it, but shrugged, stumped. Lil looked as though she had an epiphany, though.

"That looks like something you'd find at Cook's Electronics!" she said, a smile finding its way to her features. The teen brightened.

"Can you tell me where that is?" he asked, then added, "Please?"

"Yeah, its just down the road, there," she said, pointing behind him into town. "You just gotta go a couple blocks down into the shopping area. You can't miss it! Big red words!"

"Gotcha!" he said, giving her a thumbs up. "Thanks!"

He then pocketed the old looking blueprint and stood up, running in the direction Lil had pointed.

"See ya around!" Lil called. The teen waved, then pulled up his hood.

"I'm glad we could help him," Rory said. Lil gave him a look.

"_I'm_ the one who told him where to find it! All you did was notice that his clothes were old," she pointed out, folding her arms to her chest. Rory rolled his eyes.

"Whatever, wanna play catch?"

* * *

Along with it being a normal day in Jump City, it was a normal day for their superhero protectors, the Teen Titans.

Raven, the purple haired empath, was reading a book on the sofa.

Starfire, the pretty alien, was playing with her mutated moth-worm thing, Silkie.

Robin was reading the newspaper, for any leads on Slade (Insert Robin hissing and spluttering incoherent noises at the name here).

Beast boy, the green person you could never forget because he was green, was making himself a bit of tofu, seeing as, along with being green and being able to transform into any animal alive or dead, he was a vegetarian.

And Cyborg...hey, wait...where's-

"And it's _done!_"

Oh, there he is. By the security system. All happy and proud like.

His exclamation gained the attention of his teammates, who gave him a curious look (well, Raven raised an eyebrow, but its sorta the same thing).

"I finally installed the newest version of the security system!" Cyborg said proudly, smiling brightly.

"Well, good job, Cyborg," Robin congratulated. Starfire nodded.

"Yes, friend! That is most glorious that you have completed it!" she said.

Beast boy blinked. "Uh...whats the difference?" he asked. Cyborg's smile, if it was even possible, widened even more. Beast boy suddenly regretted his question.

"Well, its voice activated, for one thing!" he said. "And it talks!" He took a deep breath, then said, "Security system, on!"

"_Security system online, Sir," _the machine bleeped, causing the other Titans to stare at it. "_DNA hand print verification required."_

Cyborg placed his hand on the screen, and it scanned it. "_Thank you, Sir –blip–_ Cyborg!. _Any other requests?"_

"No, just go on standby," Cyborg said. The machine bleeped.

"_Yes, Sir -blip- _Cyborg!_._" Then it went on standby.

"Woa!" Beast boy cried, almost dropping his tofu. "Are you sure it won't gain intelligence and take over the world or something using robot monkey slaves?"

"Like that'd ever happen," Raven muttered, rolling her eyes. Beast boy slumped his shoulders, giving her a 'c'mooon!' look.

"BB, if that were even _possible—_which it isn't—it wouldn't happen! This baby is linked to my hard drive, so I can type in commands to it even if I'm away," he said. "So there won't be any taking over the world."

"With robot monkey slaves," Beast boy piped. Cyborg rolled his eyes.

"Right," he said. Then, his stomach growled. "Woo! I'm hungry! Lemme at that meat!"

"_Dude!_ I'm right here you know! Take your crummy meat somewhere else, why don't ya?" Beast boy cried. Cyborg, now in the kitchen, shook his head.

"Nope, why don't _you_ take your stinky tofu somewhere else?" he asked, poking the green changeling's forehead. Beast boy quickly shook his head.

But before the argument could go any further, the alarm sounded. The five titans quickly dropped their doings and Robin rushed to the computer, where he began typing furiously. A map of the park popped up, with a red dot blipping.

"Strange activity at the park, guys!" Robin said.

"Titans, GO!"

* * *

The now hooded teen ran though the city, and into the shopping area, like the little blonde girl had specified. He looked around; all the people here were a little unnerving, seeing as back in his time there weren't this many people left...

Shaking the bad vibe he suddenly got off, he looked around for this, "Cook's Electronics." He looked, and spotted a nice looking restaurant.

He looked inside from a distance—he kept to the shadows to feel safe—and saw food being served to the customers inside. Suddenly, his stomach growled. Startled, he wrapped his arms around his stomach. He looked around, then pulled out his time travel device. He looked at the time, which stated 01:02:21. He still had time.

Carefully, he looked around, then bolted towards the restaurant on the other side of the street.

* * *

"Closer...closer...we're getting closer..." Robin muttered, as he and the team walked through the park. They were following the tracking on his communicator, which said that the spot of suspicious activity was just ahead.

"Here!" he said, as the beeping got even wilder. The group looked at the oak tree they had been led to, to find singe marks on the ground and some of the wood of the tree itself.

"Yee-eeuh..." Cyborg moaned, sticking his tongue out. "That looks painful."

"Its like it was scorched," Raven stated.

"But why?" Robin asked, bending down. He took some of the burnt grass in his hands, which instantly turned to soot. He stood up.

"I'll take some of it and scan it," Cyborg said, already predicting his leader's command. Robin nodded.

"Right."

"Soo..." Beast boy began, shifting his weight from his heals to his toes.

"Beast boy, try seeing if you can pick up a scent," Robin said. Beast boy nodded.

"Right!" he said, turning into a hound. He sniffed the scorch mark.

"Woa!"

"Look! The Teen Titans!"

The team turned around to see a little blonde girl and brunette boy running towards them, happy looks on their faces.

"Wow! Its really you guys!" the girl cried.

"Yes! Please, have you seen anything of a suspicious nature today?" Starfire asked. The boy blinked.

"Suspicious how?" he asked.

"Like, out of the ordinary," Robin provided. The boy blinked, but the girl's eyes widened.

"Oh! Rory, I think they mean like how we saw that red haired guy who appeared out of nowhere!" the girl said. Raven raised a brow.

"Appeared out of nowhere, huh? Do tell," she said. The girl scratched her chin, as if it would help her recall the incident faster.

"Uh, well...we were sitting under the tree there, and we heard a loud bang! Like thunder! And then he was there! He needed help locating something, on this really really _really_ old piece of paper. It was like a really old blueprint, actually. It looked like something you could get from Cook's Electronics, so me and Rory told him where it was and then he took off," the girl explained. Robin nodded.

"Hm..."

"She sounds right," Beast boy said, now human once again and on all fours. "The smell goes in the direction of Cook's Electronics."

"Then thats where we go!" Robin said. But then his communicator started beeping wildly. He looked at it, his eyes widening. "Titans, trouble! Theres been a robbery!"

"What? Where?"

"On the way to Cook's. It sounds like this could be the same guy," Robin said. He then turned to the two children. "Thanks for the help."

"No prob, Rob," she said, waving her hand as she smiled.

"Now, Titans, GO!"

* * *

He entered the restaurant, hood still up to conceal his identity, and looked around. The food smelled so good, his mouth watered; it was an all you could eat buffet, if he recalled correctly. He walked farther in, and the lady at the register greeted him.

"Hello, sir, can I be of service to you today?" she asked.

"Uh, yeah, I'm kinda lookin' for something to eat," he said.

"Well, how old are you?"

"Uh...thirteen?"

"Wow, thats a bit young to be out on your own, isn't it?" she asked. He gave her a confused look.

"It...uh...is? I guess?" he said, nervously smiling.

"Okay, well, that'll be nine dollars and ninety-nine cents, Sir," she said. He gave her a blank stare.

"Dollars?"

"Yes, you know, money," she said, talking to him like he was stupid. She rolled her eyes but smiled.

"Er...uh..yes...uh..." he started digging through his pockets, but only found the paper and his time travel device. He cursed his luck. "Uh..yeah..uh...can you just let me in? Like on a tab?"

She gave him a confused look this time around. "I'm sorry, it doesn't work like that around here. So either pay up, or go somewhere else."

He frowned, and his stomach growled again. He looked over at the food once more, and decided drastic measures were to be taken. He held his hand up and concentrated, a blue starbolt forming. The woman's eyes widened.

"Look, just let me in. I haven't eaten in two days, and I'm on a mission-"

"AAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Instead, she screamed. She slid down to the floor, cowering with fear, attracting the restaurant's attention at the same time. His eyes widened under the hood.

"Lady! Quiet! _Please!_"

"J-just take the money! Take it! Its in the register!" she screeched. "Somebody call the police!"

"No! I'm just hungry!"

But no one listened. Instead, they all ran out in a frenzy of terror, abandoning their tables and meals. He sighed. The lady behind the register shivered violently, holding herself. He gave her a sorrowful look.

"Its in the register! Just _leave me alone!_"

Instead, he rushed into the now abandoned concession and began stuffing food in his mouth. As he chewed, he stuffed some food in his pockets and swallowed, then bit into a bread roll. Once he was sure he was good—and no food was touching the paper or the time travel device—he rushed out of the restaurant, continuing to Cook's Electronics.

He just narrowly dodged the Teen Titans.

* * *

The Teen Titans entered Hometown Buffet in the nick of time, only to find it devoid of most living things. The only person left was the oddly familiar register girl.

"Can you tell me what happened?" Robin asked, once she got calmed down. She blinked a couple times, then spoke.

"Well, there was this boy, in a hoodie-cape-thing who said he was thirteen. He wanted to get in for free, and I told him I couldn't do that for him, not even on a tab, and then he made this blue...thing...like Starfire's starbolts, and threatened me! Then...he left," she said. Robin raised a brow.

"That was it?" he asked. She nodded. "No money was stolen?" She shook her head.

"Nope, nothing except some food."

"Weird villain," Beast boy commented. Raven slapped him. He held his now-aching cheek.

"Strange...Did you see where he was headed for after that?" Robin asked. The woman thought it over.

"I think he went in the direction of Cook's Electronics," she said, pointing. Robin's eyes narrowed, his mask doing the same.

"Sounds like the guy the girl told us about at the park," Raven said. Robin nodded.

"Right. Titans, to Cook's Electronics! GO!"

* * *

He entered the electronics store, which was surprisingly still inhabited, what with all the commotion back at the buffet. He looked around for about fifteen minutes for anything that looked like it would match the picture on the paper, but came up empty handed.

He looked at his time travel thing; 00:31:23. Ug. He had to hurry. He pulled another bread roll out of his pocket—those things were _good—_and munched on it, then went up to the register. He was greeted by what looked like a man with no life.

"Why, hello, fella!" he said. "What can I do ya for?"

Surprised by the statement, he dismissed it, and slipped the paper on the counter. The man looked at it.

"You got anything that'd resemble this?" he asked. The man picked it up and looked at it.

"Hm...we had one of these a couple days back, but someone's bought that."

The teen could've sworn he heard a record scratch to a halt; _Sold?_

"Who'd you sell it to?" he asked, his hands slamming on the counter.

"I'm sorry, but its policy that I can't tell you that. Customer privacy 'n all," the man said. The redhead soon became annoyed.

"Maybe I didn't make myself clear enough," he said, grabbing the man's shirt. He lifted him at least a foot off the ground with ease. "_Who'd you sell it to?_"

"Help! Help! Someone, _HELP!_" the man cried, struggling in the teen's grip.

"_Tell me!"_ the teen screeched. The man relented and told him.

"T-the Titan! Cyborg! Yeah! Cyborg! I sold it to him! Hahahahaha!" he laughed, a scared look on his face. The teen's eyes narrowed.

"Of _course!_ That would explain so much!" he said, as if it were a miracle he just figured it out.

"Can you put me down now?" the man asked. Before the teen could respond, a birdarang hit the redhead's hand, and he dropped the man instantly, rubbing his now bruised hand. The man scrambled out the front door, where the teen now saw the Teen Titans—and the fact that the store was now deserted.

"Threatening civilians with strength? That's just wrong," Robin said. The teen quickly grabbed the paper, folded it quickly, and stuffed it in his empty pocket. Robin saw this.

"Empty your pockets," he ordered.

"Why should I?" the teen shot back, backing away. Robin glared.

Just as Robin shot another birdarang at the teen, he jumped, easily dodging it. He stepped on Raven's, Beast boy's, and Cyborg's heads, like a hopscotch, and made it out of the electronics store.

"After him!" Robin ordered. Beast boy turned into a cheetah and raced after him, while the others ran on foot. The teen pulled his time travel tech out of his pocket and started pushing buttons. It still said 00:28:27...26...25...

"C'mon c'mon c'mon!" he said through gritted teeth. "I can't _wait_ for a half hour!" He managed to get the date changed to 6/23/2034, but then he looked up to see a green rhino infront of him. He quickly skid to a halt, ran to the left, and watched as Cyborg collided with his teammate. He sighed with relief, looking back, but then found himself almost colliding with the sorceress, Raven.

He quickly tried to stop himself, jamming his feet to the ground, and saw that his opponent was using her magic to shoot object at him. He quickly used his blue starbolts to fire at them, destroying them on contact. Raven, shocked, just held her hands out, forming a shield, which he just jumped on, his boots allowing him to quickly make his way over it. Raven, shocked, watched as he ran off.

He continued to mess around with the controls, and finally saw that it went from 00:26:35 to 21:05:32. Though it wasn't the desired effect, it was something. And it was going up.

"C'mon c'mon c'mon!" he hissed, as green starbolts were fired his way. He quickly dodged them, which made him look like he was doing a crazy dance, and ducked, just as Cyborg was about to punch him. He quickly dropped the device and grabbed Cyborg's torso, and threw him onto the green changeling, who was a bear, and watched as they fell back. He grabbed the device and tried pressing more buttons.

Robin quickly used his bo staff to knock the device out of his hands, to the teen's surprise, and watched as he came back in for another strike. He quickly grabbed the bo staff and snapped it in half. Robin's eyes widened momentarily under the mask, but he soon gained his composure back.

"Who are you?" the hero demanded. The teen seemed to choke on his words.

"I..uh...I..." he looked back at the device, then shouted, "VORTEX!"

The villain, now dubbed Vortex, grabbed Robin and tossed him, then slid on his knees to the device and picked it up. He watched as it went from 35:21:03 to 48:32:02 in less that four seconds.

"Oh no," Vortex said, color draining from his face. Now he'd done it, he broke it!

To his surprise, his hood was jerked back, revealing his red hair to all. He jerked around, to see a stunned Robin, who probably recognized the Tameranean shade of red. But he looked even more stunned when he saw the familiar blue eyes.

"What the..."

Vortex quickly pulled up his hood, and ducked as a few more stray object flew his way. He ran, still ducking, as starbolts were fired his way and a sonic-cannon blast just narrowly missed him. He looked back at the device's clock-like monitor—68:32:54.

"Crap!" he hissed, shaking the device fiercely. "Crap crap crap crap _crap!_"

Then, he found himself tackled over by Robin, the boy wonder. He lifted his face from the ground and spit out the gravel that had been in his mouth. He stuck his tongue out, groaning as he tried to get rid of the taste of dirt.

"Now, what have you got here?" Vortex heard Robin say as he took the device from his hand. Vortex's eyes widened.

"No! Don't touch it!" he shouted, flipping himself over, causing Robin to hit the ground. Vortex hastily tried to grab the device out of Robin's hands, with little to no luck.

"Whats this?" he asked no one in particular, examining it. The screen now showed 74:54:29, and Vortex was growing more worried by the minute.

"No!"

"This looks like..." Robin's eyes widened. Vortex inhaled sharply, realizing Robin found out it looked like the time travel device Warp had used. He then took the device from the shocked teen—86:36:42. _Crap!_

Robin, though, grabbed the device back, and the two entered a severe case of tug o' war. Cyborg, aiming his sonic cannon and the speedy duo, couldn't aim at Vortex without aiming at Robin as well.

"Yo Rob!" he called out, "Get away from him!"

Robin, though, just pushed a button on the time travel disk unknowingly, which stopped the count at 97:34:39. Vortex pushed another button with his thumb in an attempt to get the device, but only started up the travel process.

The boy wonder noticed the vortex opening up and traveling up his arms and body, and saw it was happening to Vortex as well. Vortex seemed to get even paler than before.

"No! No! This can't be happening! This can't be-"

Starfire gasped, somehow getting an idea of what was happening. "_Robin!_"

But it was too late. A bright light flashed, causing the Titans there to hold their arms over their eyes as shields, but as the light dimmed and they looked back...they were...gone.

Robin was gone.

-If there was a theme song, it would go here. Listen to it if you like-

It took her a moment, but Starfire flew over to the scene, where there was a scorch mark—one much like the one they found at the park. She held her hands over her mouth, tears brimming and threatening to fall. Raven floated over and placed a hand on her shoulder, comforting her the best she could.

"Dude...what just happened?" Beast boy asked. Cyborg scratched his scalp.

"I dunno, man," he said, then looked at his arm. He opened up a screen and tried something. "I can't find Robin's communicator signal," he said after a while. "Its like he just...vanished."

This only made Starfire cry. Raven closed her eyes, as if to try something, and after a moment said, "I can't sense him at all. Its like that time you went to the past, Cyborg."

"Does that mean..." Beast boy began, pointing to the scorch and then to Cyborg and the sky with different hands.

"He's time traveled?" Cyborg finished for him, scratching his chin as he thought about it. "Huh, must be...otherwise we'd be able to find him."

"Oh, I hope he has not gone to the horrible future I had gone to!" Starfire said, trying to wipe her tears. She smiled ruefully, but only started crying again. Raven gave her her best attempt at a one-armed hug, only to have the alien princess hug her fiercely back.

"Well, if thats the case then we should go back to the tower, so you can try and locate him, Raven," Cyborg said. Beast boy nodded.

"Yeah, just like how you had to meditate and find Cyborg through the timestream-thing!" he said. Raven nodded as she finally got Starfire to stop squishing her.

"Right. So lets get back to the T-car..."

Suddenly, there was a loud clasp of thunder—in the middle of summer? It wasn't even cloudy. But that girl had said she heard thunder when she saw that Vortex fellow...so...

"_Suzan!_"

"Dude..." Beast boy managed to splutter, holding a shaky finger up. Starfire turned, and with everyone else, saw Robin—Robin! Well, his hair was messy, his suit was tattered slightly, but it was still him!

Starfire gasped, a joyful smile making its way to her lips. "Robin!" she shouted, flying over to the shocked boy. She hugged him like she hadn't seen him in years. Robin's eyes bulged slightly, surprised by the sudden hug. Then he caught sight of the red haired Tameranean and smiled.

"Starfire!" he cried, hugging her back. He inhaled her scent and sighed peacefully. The other three Titans allowed them their moment, and soon the five were driving back to Titans' tower.

Robin sure had some explaining to do.

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: Before y'all sue me, I own NOTHIN'! 'cept Vortex and characters to come.**

**Hm. So. Hows that for a first Teen Titan's fic? I like it. Though it is long. But this is what I see the prologue/chapter 1 as being. This is my first try at a Teen Titans/Time Travel/Next Generation fic that I actually approve of—I have draft upon draft upon draft on my computer that I tried writing but didn't like. This is the newest version. Vortex isn't Vortex's proper name either, but stick around for future updates to find out his real name. I've got a couple other chapters written up, too, so expect some quick updates. But that doesn't mean don't review now! Please! Drop a review and tell me if you would like to see more of this or not! Or if you liked it! Or not! But please, don't flame me too bad if you choose to do so. Though I don't really see the point, other than your wasting your time writing it.**

**CMK**


	2. Explanations of Future's Come

_**Future's Folly**_

_Chapter 2: Explanations of Future's Come_

_

* * *

_

Robin, now in a fresh uniform and re-gelled hair, took a glass and filled it up with fluid from the tap. He quickly gulped it down, like he hadn't drank a thing in forever, as his friends watched. He then refilled the cup and drank half of that, then sighed, content.

"Thats better," he muttered, wiping his lips with his glove.

His teammates eyed him with interest, waiting for him to tell them what happened. But they'd give him space. He must've been though a lot to come back looking like that, calling out for this 'Suzan' person.

Robin sat down at the table. Starfire sat at his left, Beast boy on his right, the two who were most interested in him telling them his story. Next to Starfire was Cyborg and next to Beast boy was Raven. Robin rested his elbow on the table and his face on his fist, licking his lips idly as he did.

"Is there anything I would be able to get you, Robin?" Starfire asked. Robin thought about it, but shook his head.

"Nah," he said. "I bet you all really want to hear what happened."

"_YES._" Both Starfire and Beast boy slammed their hands on the table simultaneously. A moment passed and they slowly removed their hands from the wood, slightly embarrassed.

"So...what happened?" Raven asked.

"How did you get back?" Cyborg also asked.

"Yeah, and did you kick Vortex's butt?" Beast boy asked.

"Was it dark and depressing, like when I had visited the future?" Starfire asked.

"Woa, too many questions!" Robin said, as they were about to ask more. They quieted. "Well, I'll tell you guys what happened, I got back when _this_-" he pulled out the familiar time travel device, which was bent in some places now, and placed it on the table, "-timed out, I didn't kick 'Vortex's' Butt-" Beast boy's ears drooped at that comment, "-and it _was_ a bit dark and depressing-" Starfire's eyes widened, "But it wasn't _exactly _the same as when you were there."

"So..."

"So...well...It all started when the vortex spewed us out twenty-four years in the future. Time Travel wasn't all to comfortable, but it worked..."

* * *

Time travel, if you ever try it without a capsule like on TV and in the movies, is very painful. Its like they're ripping you out of existence, mushing you up in an easy-to-carry mush, and spewing you out somewhere else.

I, for one, would not like to do it again.

But anyways. The vortex dropped us off in what seemed to be the park, but older...and more dead-er. Vortex fell backwards, laying on the dead grass and breathing deeply. I stumbled back and held myself up against the oak tree. The device was still in my hand.

Vortex suddenly shot up. "Crap crap crap crap_ crap!_ This wasn't supposed to happen, this _wasn't_ suppose to happen! What if the future gets messed up? What if I'm never born? What...what if I make the future _worse?_ What if-"

While he was rambling, I noticed that the sky was _red_. Red like when Trigon took over the world and almost destroyed it red. I looked back at Vortex, who was walking around in circles, holding his head and panicking.

"Hey, Vortex," I called, catching his attention. "What happened?"

"Uh..well...uh...er..." he gulped, his hand over his neck. "Uh...you're...kinda...in what would be _your_ future and _my _present."

I blinked. Though you really couldn't tell under the mask.

"Come again?"

"Er...your twenty-four years in the future. Welcome to two-thousand thirty-four!" he said, holding his hand out to the crumbled city ahead—was this Jump?-

**(**"Dude, the City's destroyed in two-thousand thirty-four?" Beast boy cried, slamming his hands down on the table in shock. The others shushed him. "Sorry..."**)**

-Why was the city in ruins? And the sky...it was _really_ unnearving.

"What the heck is all of this?" I demanded, looking around.

"Your future..." Vortex said nervously.

I looked at the device in my hand. It stated 97:31:09. "And this?"

"Time Travel Disk..." he said.

"And the numbers?"

"How long you'll be here..."

I looked back at the disk. A quick relay of how long a day was gave me the honest to God fact that I was going to be in the future for four days-

**(**"You were in the future for that many days?" Starfire asked, a worried look crossing her features. Robin nodded. She hugged him close, causing Robin to blush. The others snickered.

Once Robin got free of the hug and composed himself, he went back to the story.**)**

"I'm stuck here for four days?"

"Four days, an hour and thirty-one minutes," Vortex corrected, just as the :01 became :00. "Make that thirty minutes."

I stared at the hooded teen—only to realize, he wasn't hooded anymore, and the red hair I had seen and the blue eyes—the _painfully _familiar blue eyes—were exposed to the world.

I gave him a look, one that showed how frightened I was, and then I went on a rant.

"What the heck, Vortex? Why'd you do this? Why'd this have to happen? What's going to happen to my teammates back home! Starfire, Raven, Beast boy, Cyborg..." I made gestures with my hands that made absolutely no sense. "What the heck? Vortex, _why_ did you even come back to the present—past—my time!"

"To stop the ultimate evil from making the future—my time—like this..." he stated, not even looking me in the eye—well, mask, whatever.

I thought for a moment, then said, "The ultimate evil that makes the future—er, _your_ time—like this is Cook's Electronics?"

If the others were here, they'd probably laugh at that statement.

**(**And indeed, Beast boy and Cyborg laughed.**)**

"No, no..the ultimate evil that makes my time like this was _sold_ at Cook's Electronics...to your friend. The robot one," he said.

**(**"Say what?" Cyborg cried.

He was met by a rather large shush from the three other listeners.**)**

"Cyborg?"

"Yes, him. It was-"

Suddenly, Vortex tensed. As if he heard something. I tried to hear what he heard...which was marching.

"Marching?" I asked, startled by the sound. I had only heard it a couple other times—when Slade took over the city and at marching band marches.

Vortex, on the other hand, looked freaked. "Oh no oh no oh no oh no _oh no!_"

"What? What is it?" I asked. Vortex made a moan, his features looking scared, and he grabbed my hand, quickly running to the ruined city. "Whats happening!"

"Shhhh!" he shushed me, and I was quiet. Even if I was trusting a villain, he _did_ know how to deal with whatever was going on.

So I let Vortex lead me into an almost destroyed—but still standing—building. There, we hid. I sat on the ground and Vortex tried his best to look out the window.

While I sat, I couldn't help but think _what_ would actually make the future like this. World dictatorship? Magic? Slade?

Then, Vortex sat next to me.

"Well...uh..." He took something out of his pocket. "Hungry?"

He offered me a bread roll. I looked at it, then him. "Where'd you get that?"

"The buffet in your time."

"Oh." Right. He was the one who robbed it.

I shook my head no and he shrugged, biting into the roll. He seemed to be savoring each bite of it—like he hadn't eaten in a while, which _could_ be accurate, seeing as the sky was_ red._

"So..." he said, still chewing. "You're Robin..."

"Uh..yeah."

"I know you in my time. Here. You're Nightwing, though." He swallowed. "You're pretty cool."

I was here? But...if when Starfire went to the future she disappeared, how could I be here?

As I was about to ask him how that was possible, a scream sounded. Vortex shot up, bolting to the window, where he could just barely make out whatever had been going on. I walked up behind him, and saw what appeared to be a hoard of silver robots aiming at a little girl, a littler boy, and what appeared to be a dead man.

My eyes widened at the scene, and Vortex instantly rushed out the door, leaving me alone. I looked at the disk—97:20:56. Hm.

I groaned, clipped the device to my belt, and chased after the redhead, who was now halfway to the scene of the murder. The Robots looked up, and one of them pronounced a word few words.

"_Phoe-nix. E-ne-my. De-stroy."_

Vortex—Phoenix—whatever—jumped, narrowly dodging a lazer sent his way. I barely ducked in time, so that it instead hit the wall of a deteriorating building.

Vortex continued to dodge lazers, eventually coming close enough to the robots to spit at them. He jumped, his boot coming in contact with what appeared to be the robot's face. He jumped on their heads, using them as stepping stones, until he came up to the opening where the little girl and boy stood with the dead man.

"Robin! Take care of the bots!" he said.

"Right!" I said, taking out my bo staff. I threw a birdarang at the robots, hitting and slashing the heads off of a few. As I used my staff to bash some of the bots, I just barely heard Vortex converse with the kids in the center.

"What happened here?" he asked.

"The robots shot daddy!" the girl cried. "Can you save him?"

The silence gave me time to slash a couple more robots. Then his voice came back.

"He's alive, so don't worry. Now if only..."

I didn't pay any more attention after that, but could only infer that he was helping them. Just as the robots seemed to diminish some, one grabbed my cape, lifting me up in the air. I thought I was done for, but a blue starbolt hit it square in the chest and it fell over. I got up and saw Vortex with the children, carrying the man.

"Robin! We should retreat now!" he said.

"Why?" I asked, bashing one robot and tripping another.

"Because, if we don't leave soon they'll send-"

But his eyes only widened as a purple ray hit near his feet, causing him to jump back. I turned, just as the robots seemed to back off.

"What was that?"

Vortex, with a strange and scared look on his face, pointed upward with his free hand. There, on the top of a surviving building, was a teenager—sixteen, maybe—with black hair tied back in a ponytail, red bangs covering his eyes, and a bulky, robotic arm with lots of wires attached to it and part of it covering half of his face, wires connected to that to. It covered his right eye as well, which was replaced by a circular red scanner eye thing.

"Crap," he muttered, his eyes narrowing in fright.

"Who's that?" I demanded, but wasn't answered. The strange teen jumped, landing on the ground with a bang, cracks forming. The robots came and grabbed me by my arms, lifting me off the ground. They did the same to Vortex and the kids, leaving the injured man to die.

"_Phoenix," _the boy said, though his mouth didn't move, in a monotone, "_How nice to see you once more_. _Have fun on your little trip?_"

* * *

**Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans. If I did I wouldn't be here. I'd be making this into a movie or the first episode of season six.**

**So here you all are. Chapter 2! Hope you all enjoy. Now you get a little taste of the future Vortex came from and you find out what that eye thing was from the beginning of chapter 1. :)**

**A lot of this will be in Robin's POV. I found that I liked it that way, 'cause he's the one telling the story, which _he_ recalled. So now you know why I chose to do that, though I don't really like writing first person POV with characters that are not mine. Its tricky. I don't know if this or that will actually be the character's response... And the stuff in the parenthesis are comments from the team, incase you didn't already catch that. You can skip over it if you like, though it does help with the story flow later.  
**

**This dude who came here now, I must say, is bad news. Though he's not doing it willingly...hint hint...:3**

**And thanks to the people who reviewed last chapter. Don't forget to review this one!**

**REVIEW! PLEASE! BLARG! :3  
**

**CMK**


	3. Kyris

_**Future's Folly**_

_Chapter 3: Kyris

* * *

_

"Kyris!" Vortex cried, glaring at the teen.

"_How good. You still remember me,_" he said, mouth still not moving. Though he did smirk.

"Kyris! Let us go!" he shouted, struggling as hard as he could.

"_No can do, Phoenix,_" this 'Kyris' bleeped. "_Master wants you alive. For now. Says you caused to much trouble to be allowed to live."_

"That's not true! You're the ones causing trouble!" Vortex shouted.

"_Phoenix_," Kyris snapped.

"That's not my name!" Vortex shouted. "You remember, don't you? We saved you from your old life! We grew up together! Tell me you remember! Tell me my real name!"

It was silent for a moment. I couldn't even believe what he said. Kyris seemed to be contemplating—or computing—this in his head.

"_You are Phoenix. Enemy. Member of Teen Titans_.-

**(**"Woa!" was the response Robin got from his friends.

"Vortex is a Teen Titan from the future?" Beast boy cried, excited.

"It appears so," Raven said.

"Now back to the Story..."**)**

-_You and your friends and family work to stop the Master from cleansing the world of evil and violence. I do not know your name_."

"C'mon, Kyris! Try harder! You can remember! Remember me! Me and Suzan and everyone!" Vortex pushed, trying desperately to get Kyris to 'remember'.

"_I do not compute._"

"Tell me you remember!" Vortex pressed.

"_I do not compute."_

"C'mon! Tell me!"

"_I do not compute._"

"Tell me! Its me! C'mon! My name!"

"_I do not compute—I do not compute—I do not—I do—compute—not—do not compute—I..."_ Kyris seemed to momentarily 'shut down'. Vortex sighed.

"Again..." he murmured, distraught. I didn't really know what to do—or say—at a moment like this, so I gave him a look.

"You're not Vortex?" I finally asked.

"Mmh...around here I'm known as Phoenix...but even that's not my real name..." he said, looking at the rebooting Kyris once more. "Me an' him go way back...he was—_is—_my..."

**(**Robin paused, wondering if he should reveal this next piece of information. The others gave him impatient glances.

"Well?" Cyborg pressed.

"We're waiting," Beast boy said.

Robin nodded. "Then he said...**)**

"...He was—_is—_my cousin."

I gave him a shocked look. That..._thing_ (I use the term lightly) was his cousin? What ever happened to the poor guy?

"_Reboot complete,"_ Kyris blooped, standing tall once again. "_Do not toy with me, Phoenix. I nor the Master tolerate such foolhardy behavior."_

"Myeh...I tried.." Vortex muttered, his tongue sticking out lazily.

"_Prepare to go back to the Master at once. There you will be tried and killed."_

Vortex only looked up, as if expecting something. I looked up as well, hearing a faint screeching in the distance. The children seemed to brighten.

"Hear that, Kyri?" Vortex asked, smiling ever so happily at the nickname. Kyris looked up, his robotic eye blinking and zooming into the sky.

Suddenly, I spotted it. There, making a nose dive was a full-fledge griffin.

**(**"Woa, dude! A Griffin?" Beast boy asked, stoked. His grin faded quickly, though. "Whatsa Griffin?"

"A Griffin is a mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle," Raven said. Beast boy nodded.

"Coooooool...I should see if I can turn into one a' those later!" he said.

"May I continue?" Robin asked. The others nodded. "Okay, so like I said...**)**

The griffin screeched, claws extended forward. It sped towards us, and only then did I realize it was entirely gray—with a patch of green and purple on the top of it head. Kyris' human eye widened, and his mouth opened for the first time.

"_Titans!"_ his mechanical monotone screeched. "_Robots, attack!"_

The bots around us started firing at the griffin, which was when I realized it was carrying passengers—a blonde girl who reminded me an awfully lot of Terra, a dark skinned boy and a jet-black haired girl.

The Terra-look-a-like jumped off the griffin, plummeting to the floor. I for one was shocked, but looked to Vortex to find a look of gratitude, happiness, and awe on his face. I looked back up.

The blonde was saved by a rock floating up and catching her-

**(**"TERRA!" Beast boy shouted, happy.

"BB, that's twenty-four years in the future," Cyborg said. "It ain't Terra."

Beast boy sulked as the story continued.

"So, the rock floated up and caught her-**)**

-And then she rushed past the robots and us, which were still firing at her. The griffin tackled a robot, ripping its head clear off with its beak. The other two jumped off the beast and came running to our aid.

"Ty! Suzan!" Vortex shouted happily.

The boy used some sort of sonic cannon that came out of his hand to fire and shoot at robots—it was then that I realized he wore tech that looked like Cyborg's. The black haired girl merely punched the robots and they were down.

The griffin continued tackling bots, but then disappeared. I was stunned for a second until I realized in its place was a gray hyena—and then I figured out it was a shapeshifter.

I for one would not stick around to be killed by this 'Master', so I kicked the robots, which dropped me. Then I grabbed my bo staff off the ground and whacked the bots with it.

The blonde shot rocks and rubble at the mechanical army, which quickly began diminishing. The hyena had now become a panther, biting into the tech of the machines.

I was about to rush and rescue Vortex when the blonde came over and knocked the bots holding him out. He smiled.

"Thanks," he said. She smiled back.

"'Welcome."

He then went and crushed the robots holding the kids, and lifted them onto the blonde's rock ride. He then lifted the injured man onto it, and saluted her off playfully. She smiled, and shot more rocks at the diminishing army.

I was almost ambushed by a sneaking robot, but was saved by the black haired girl.

"Yo, traffic light," she said, holding what looked like the skull of the robot. I glared.

"That's _not _my name!"

"Whatever. Look out!" she said, balancing her hands on the robot corpse as she kicked an oncoming robot.

I looked back to find Kyris about to fire at the shapeshifter. Scared, I shouted, "Hey! Shapeshifter!"

The now-Raptor-shapeshifter turned its head, saw Kyris, then transformed into a turtle, narrowly dodging the beam as it hid in its shell. I ran up and kicked the half-bot down, then ran to the turtle shell. It poked its head out and transformed into a green haired girl with purple bangs.

"Thanks, traffic light," she said, and I realized she had a tail. But then I glared.

"My name's not traffic light!"

"Look out!" the girl cried, tackling me as a purple beam just narrowly missed us. "Now we even?" I nodded, and she quickly got up, transformed into a lioness and pounced Kyris.

"_Begone, Beastress!_" Kyris' monotone cried, shooting her off. The lioness landed a few yards from him, turned back into a girl and panted.

The dark skinned boy with the tech came running to her, trying to help her up. She swatted his hand away and stood up herself. They went back to battling and so did I.

Just as I was about to have my head smashed in, Kyris froze, giving Vortex the chance to kick him down. Just as he aimed a blue starbolt at him, Kyris shouted, "_RETREAT!"_

The bots disappeared into the shadows as quickly as they came. Kyris gave us one menacing smile, then disappeared into the shadows as well. The blonde girl landed her rock near Vortex, jumped off, and hugged the living daylights out of him.

"Oh, I missed you so much!" she cried.

"Same here," he said back. The black haired girl walked up to him.

"Who's he?" she asked, pointing to me.

"Uh...hehe...about that, Suzan..."

**(**"So what happened?" Beast boy pressed, really getting into the story.

"Yeah! C'mon, don't leave us hanging!" Cyborg said, equally enthusiastic.

"Okay, okay. Well, lets just say they weren't all to happy in having me there...**)**

"He's...er...uh...Robin. From twenty-ten." Vortex laughed nervously.

The black haired girl's, Suzan's, eyes widened, and she looked back at me, then grabbed Vortex's collar and shouted at him.

"You brought_ Robin _back here? Why didn't you just complete the mission like we planned?" she demanded, shaking him furiously. "You've put the whole universe at stake!"

"I-it was an a-a-accident, Suzan! I didn't mean to! I almost had it b-b-but they attacked me 'cause they thought I was a villain!" Vortex explained. "And it's not the _whole_ universe!" Suzan stopped shaking him.

It was quiet.

"Bread roll?" he asked, offering her the appetizer. She took it, ate it, but still glared at him.

"This isn't going to go well back home," she said, eyeing me strangely. Vortex nodded.

"Yeah, I know," he said. "But that thing's programed to go back to his time in about four days."

"So..for four days we gotta keep him from dying. Super," the techie boy said, rolling his eyes. He licked his lips idly. "Got anymore of those bread rolls?"

"Even better," he said, pulling out a chicken leg. The boy took it and gobbled it down as fast as he could. The shapeshifter, though hungry, gagged at her friend's choice of meal. "I didn't forget you, Mary," he said, pulling out a bread roll and a carrot. The green haired girl took it and ate happily. He offered something to each person present, and I stared at them all questioningly.

What the heck was wrong with the future?

* * *

**Disclaimer: I only own the dudes and dudettes your probably thinking about along the lines with, "Huh, I wonder who their parents are!" Everything else is not mine.**

**So. Chapter three. Things are turning out weird in Robin's story! Who are these teens? Will there be more of 'em? Can any of you guess their parents? Or at least one of their parents? **

**Will you ever find out Vortex's real name? !**

**Beastress is a combination of _Beast _and _Mistress_ that I made up. I thought it would be original, since later on she'll call herself the mistress of the animals.  
**

**Fight scene! Yeah! Go guys! Kick them robot arse!**

**This was originally apart of Chapter 2, but then I wrote a bit of the next chapter and decided "Meh, this last one is really really long. Cut it in half and make a new chappie! Yayz!"  
**

**I changed around the description, too, if you noticed. I thought it would be better if I did. So I did. Hm.**

**I also drew something:** http:/img443(dot)imageshack(dot)us/img443/797/vortexcolored2(dot)png **It's Vortex. Took me about two and a half days to digitally trace and color it. But it came out well, if I must say so myself. :)**

**Also, if you want, you can go to my profile and check out some other sketches I did for the story. If you want to. They're pretty tight.  
**

**So...Review! Review, or it'll be longer until you get the next chapter! Reviews are my LIFE FORCE. :| Okay...maybe more like my joy and happiness. So review, plzzz! And tell all your friends about this story too! Yesh!  
**

**CMK :)**


	4. Intros plz?

_**Future's Folly**_

_Chapter 4: Intros plz?

* * *

_

So basically, I'm stuck here. I, Robin, am stuck twenty-four years in the future with a group of teenage superheroes who strangely remind me of my friends back in my time—really weird saying that—and the constant threat of being beaten and/or killed by packs of robots, which also seemed to have destroyed the city I called home, for four days.

This might take some getting used too.

"Hey, traffic light," Suzan called. I glared at her.

"My name's not _traffic light_," I said.

"Well you sure look like one," she said, causing the green haired girl and the boy with the tech to laugh.

"I'm _Robin_, incase you've forgotten," I said, pointing to myself with my thumb.

"Yeah, whatever," she said, waving me off. "We're gonna go back to the Underground now, okay? You're welcomed to come with."

I thought it over. Go with a bunch of total stranger from the future...or get ambushed by another hoard of robots.

You can guess what I chose.

**(**"What'd you choose?" Beast boy interrupted, earning a glare from Raven and shushes from Cyborg and Starfire.

"I went with them, okay?" Robin said. Beast boy nodded dumbly. "Okay, so then I followed them...**)**

I followed them as they snuck around the tattered remains of the city. We passed the tower, which now had tall electric fences around it.

"What happened to the Tower?" I asked.

"Its been like that for as long as I can remember this whole thing going on," Suzan responded.

It was left at that.

Vortex, his pals, the little kids, the injured man, who was being carried by Vortex, and I rushed across the open road, jumping in a window of an old abandoned, still standing, building. It was cold and dark inside, but there seemed to be a good vibe coming from the place.

Tech boy and Suzan pulled open what appeared to be the entrance to a cellar. Vortex, propping the man over his shoulder, walked down with the little girl and boy. The blonde-Terra-look-alike followed him, then the shapeshifter, and tech boy after her. I stood there. Suzan motioned for me to go, and I did. She closed the cellar doors behind her.

It was insufferably dark as we walked down the steps. I nearly crashed into tech boy twice. Then, light flooded my eyes. I blinked a couple times, finding myself in what appeared to be a lobby. I stared at the few people that were in there. Suzan bumped into me from behind.

"Hey! Watch it, traffic light!" she said, walking around me.

**(**"Dude, how many times is she gonna call you traffic light?" Beast boy asked.

"A lot. Now shush."**)**

"Oh, hey, Suzan," I heard a voice say. I turned to see what appeared to be a clone of Beast boy .

**(**Robin stopped, thinking over if he should tell them the boy's eye color; a very familiar purple.

"Dude, who's the clone of me?" Beast boy asked, growing impatient.

"Yes, I also wish to know of this 'clone'," Starfire said, smiling fondly yet curiously at the same time.

"Right...**)**

He had a violet cap on and a smirk that could last a life time. "Duncan complete the mission?"

Duncan?

"No. He brought back _Robin_," Suzan seethed, glaring at me through the corner of her eye. Vortex frowned like a kid who'd had their ice cream taken away.

"I didn't mean to! It was an accident!" he cried. Suzan stomped off, leaving us on our own. The Beast boy copy looked back at me.

"Hm. Robin." He smiled. "Cool."

"Duncan's got food!" the techie cried, radiating waves of joy.

I could only infer Vortex was actually Duncan. Hm.

'Duncan' pulled out another bread roll—how many of those did he take?—with his free hand and gave it to the green skinned teen. He happily gobbled it up.

The blonde grabbed the little girl and boy's hands, then said, "I'll take these guys to the playroom, okay?"

"Sure," the others replied. She walked off.

"Okay, this is weird. I've had enough. Who _are_ all you people?" I finally asked, looking at the four teens left.

"We're the Teen Titans," Tech boy said. Duncan nudged him, then gave him a look. "Ooooooh, right..._Robin..._"

"We're the Teen Titans of your future—our time—he means," the green haired girl said, cutting in. Her tail wagged slightly—it kind of reminded me of a golden retriever.

Just as I was about to get them to specify that, a voice interrupted me.

"Hey, I just saw Suzan stomping off, so I can only assume you dudes were all back."

That voice was familiar...yet different at the same time. Strange.

The familiar voice belonged to a tall, green man. Once he caught sight of me he froze.

"...Robin?"

"Beast boy?" I asked.

"Changeling," he corrected, but then blinked. The adult changeling jerked a thumb behind him, then pointed at me, then all over the place. "But..if your _you_, how's Nightwing..."

"Nightwing?" I inquired, the name familiar yet foreign on my tongue.

"Did somebody say my name?" A tall man with long black hair walked in behind Changeling...

**(**"...Beast boy, is something wrong?" Robin asked. Beast boy had this strange look on his face, like he wanted to ask something yet not know the answer.

"Was I...bald?" he asked. The others sweat dropped.

"No...you weren't," he said. Beast boy cheered. "Now, if I might get back to the story...**)**

A tall man with long black hair walked in behind Changeling. Nightwing. His costume was just like what Starfire described. His eyes—mask—widened when he saw me. He instantly pointed a finger at the teens.

"What did you do?" he demanded.

"N-nothing!" three of them cried. Duncan gulped rather nervously.

"I-i-its was an accident!" he cried, paling considerably.

"Bringing _me_ here was an accident?" he asked, trying to keep himself calm..or...myself...gah this is confusing...

"I was trying to get rid of the ultimate evil by time travel but the Teen Titans from then mistakingly attacked me and now he's here!" He paused. "_You're_ here," he corrected. "He. _Gah_ grammar is haarrd!"

"You're telling me," I muttered. Nightwing sighed, holding his face with his hand.

"How long is he here for?" he asked.

"Uh...four days..." Duncan muttered, trying not to look Nightwing in the mask—eyes—something...

Nightwing sighed. "Fine. He—I—should get acquainted with everyone...and go show me—_him_—around," he said.

"Right!" the four teens cried, the green haired girl actually saluting.

"At ease..." Nightwing muttered, holding the bridge of his nose in an annoyed manner. He walked up to Duncan and took the injured man from him, then walked off, presumably to take him to their version of a med bay. Changeling then gave me a weird look.

"Must be weird, seeing your future self 'n all, Dude," he said.

"Er...kind of is," I said.

"But...if I must say, I liked you much better when you were Robin."

I raised my brow at his statement.

**(**Cyborg laughed. "Kiss up!" Beast boy glared.

"Not funny!"

Robin cleared his throat. Cyborg eventually stopped. "Alright..alright..."

"Thanks. So as I was saying...**)**

"Uh..right," I said. "Is everyone here?"

Changeling seemed tense some, but talked anyways. "Oh, yeah, Star's here, and so is Cy, and Bumblebee..."

"What about Raven?"

Changeling stiffened, then looked down. "Raven...is MIA. Y'know, missing in action."

My eyes widened.

**(**"Friend Raven is missing?" Starfire asked. Beast boy gave him a 'seriously?' look. Cyborg's mouth hung open. Raven's eyes widened.

Robin nodded. "Sadly, she is. Was. Will be. Yeah...uh..and then I said...**)**

"Really?"

"Yeah...went out one day and never came back...We think a robot got her. Stupid robot..." he grumbled, digging his hands in his pockets. He kicked the ground.

It was quiet after that.

"Yeah, well, anyways...I'm Zak," the Beast boy clone introduced himself.

"I'm Ty," the techie said.

"I'm Maryanne, but you can call me Mary," the shapeshifter said.

"And I'm Duncan," Duncan said.

"The blonde who was here a minute ago was Cora, and the girl with the black hair and pretty emerald eyes is Suzan," Zak said, sighing to himself with a smile on his face. Ty made a gagging noise.

"Then you still gotta meet Z and Lou," Mary said.

"Z and Lou?" I said, raising a brow.

"Yeah, Z's my lil' sister, and Lou's Mary's—_our_ good pal," Ty corrected himself, chuckling somewhat nervously.

"But you'll find Lou reading_ books _all day," Mary groaned.

"_Raven's_ old books," Ty corrected. They all looked at the ground and gave her a moment of silence.

"Yeah, well, anyways, tour time!" Zak cried, grabbing my arm and dragging me down a hall. Duncan, Mary and Ty followed behind. Changeling jogged behind us. It seemed he had nothing better to do.

"So, now that your here," Mary said, her hands resting behind her head, "You can sleep with the guys."

"We _do_ have an empty bed in the room..." Zak muttered, putting his hand on his chin in a thinking manner.

"But...that was _Kyris'_ bed..." Duncan pointed out. They seemed to grow sad with the use of the name.

"Wait...Kyris was the guy who attacked us earlier. Why would he have slept here?" I asked.

"Uh...he wasn't _always_ robot-ified," Mary said.

"Yeah...he used to be here, with us," Ty said. "He is part of the family 'n all. But then, one day, he and Nightwing got in a fight about whether or not to ambush a fleet of bots. Nightwing said no. Kyris snuck out. Next thing we knew, he was MIA. About a month later we found him...but..."

"It was to late..." Duncan muttered, looking down.

"Oh, right..." I said, recalling what Duncan had said earlier. "Cousin...ah..."

It was a bit awkward as we walked down the hallway after that. We passed a few rooms, which they told me were some of the sleeping quarters for people, the playroom—Duncan stopped in to check up on Cora—a training room, and a storage room. Then we made it out to what appeared to be an indoor balcony. I looked over the fence keeping us up, and saw people. Like, thirty of them or something.

But they all had tattered clothes on and looked like they hadn't bathed in a while—which made me look at the 'Teen Titans' here. They also had old clothes on and looked like they had just played in dirt.

I looked back and spotted something blue—Cyborg! Then I saw a zip of red hair—Starfire! They were still here, like Changeling said! But...they were _older_. A bit confusing, if I must say...

As I was consumed by my thoughts, Changeling came up behind me and gripped my shoulder. I looked at him, and he smiled at my look of awe.

"Welcome," he said, holding a hand out, "To the Underground Railroad, 2.0!"

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: NO, I DON'T OWN TEEN TITANS. HOW MANY TIMES MUST I TYPE THIS?**

**I felt good with leaving it off here. Sorta a cliffy and sorta not.**

**Plus...**

**~~HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!~~ XD Anyone going to see fireworks? I am! :) (Fireworks are cool, yo)  
**

**Aaaand! Finally know his real name! Coooool! Duncan, huh? Isn't it cool? Isn't it? Huh?**

**Oooh. And _Underground Railroad 2.0!_ Anyone can tell what might have caused it to be named after the original Underground Railroad. ^^**

****READ: And the whole 'Raven MIA' thing (Sorry Raven-lovers)...I just needed something to move with the plot. I had an idea which goes with this. Or a few. Why not take your pick? There's A) Raven's a prisoner of 'the ultimate evil', and the 'ultimate evil' is trying to robot-ify her like Kyris, and will later be rescued, or B) Raven's a prisoner of the 'ultimate evil' (again) and its forcing her to repair it and other damaged but still sustainable robots, and will later be rescued.  
**

**Either way you have it, Raven comes back.**** I might go with B most likely. It was what I first thought up, and I think It'd fit with the plot the best out of the two choices. But you guys put your input in too.**

**Any more guesses on their parents? Hm? C:**

**And thank you to all those who've read, reviewed, favorited, and alterted this story! Its great to know you all like it! Gives me reasons to continue with this story!  
**

**Hm. So review, please! I love to hear what you think! :)**

**CMK**


	5. Underground

_**Future's Folly**_

_Chapter 5: Underground_

_

* * *

_Beast boy blinked. "Underground Railroad? Isn't that when Jesus led the Hebrews out of Russia and away from Hitler?"

Raven sighed.

"No," Robin said. "Those are four different things."

"Oh," Beast boy piped. His ears drooped.

"Man, I'm getting confused," Cyborg then said. "Tell me everyone you've met so far. Just so I can be up and current with them all."

"Uh, okay," the boy wonder said. "Well, there's Duncan, who we all thought was Vortex. He's got starbolts and super strength similar to Starfire. Then there's Cora, who's sort of like a mini-Terra, minus a few things here and there. And there's Mary, who's got green hair and dyed her bangs purple or something. And she had a green tail, like a dog, because she's a shapeshifter.

"After that we've got Ty, who's got tech similar to your's. Its removable, though. He's real easy going," Robin said. "Zak's like a mini Beast boy, but he has a sort of arrogant attitude. Suzan's a bit of a control freak and someone you don't really get along with at first until you get to know them better. She's got black hair and green eyes.

"Then there's still Z and Lou that I have to talk about," he said. Cyborg nodded.

"Right."

Hm...

Yeah...

"Well, on with the story. Changeling held his hand out, saying...

* * *

"Welcome, to the Underground Railroad 2.0!" he said. I looked around.

"Underground Railroad?" I asked. Zak nodded.

"Yeah, y'know. They named it after the other Underground Railroad that helped slaves escape from the north and be free in the south," he said. Then he blinked. "Or was it escape from the south and be free in the north...?"

"Well, anyways," Duncan cut in. "This is the main room. Here, we eat, plan, and store all the big stuff that won't fit in the little store room back there." He jerked a thumb behind him.

Stunned, I looked back at all the people. I realized they were packing stuff up into boxes—but why?

"They're...packing," I said.

"Oh yeah," Mary said, "Its that time of year that we move."

"Move?"

"Thats right. We move about three times a year, so that the bots won't get us," she said. Ty nodded.

"Yeah. This'll be the second move this year. Then we'll move again in October, and then again in February," he said.

Huh. That actually sounds like it would work.

"_Soo_..." Changeling began, placing his hands on his hips and stretching his back. "I'll just leave you kids to it. Don't kill each other while I'm gone."

Without waiting for a response, he jumped over the railing, turned into a bird, and flew off. He landed, changed back to his normal form, then helped a lady with a box that almost fell over.

Zak waved to him enthusiastically. "Bye Dad!"

**(**"_Woa!_" Beast boy shouted, actually standing up. "I'ma _dad?_"

"Uh...yeah? In the future...?" Robin said slowly, so the changeling's little green mind could comprehend it. "And I _probably_ shouldn't have said that..."

"How else would he look exactly like you?" Raven asked, inwardly rolling her eyes.

Beast boy stood there silently for a moment, actually_ thinking_. "So...does that make Mary my kid too? 'Cause she's a shapeshifter 'n all..."

Robin thought it over. "I...guess it would."

"Sweet! Two kids!" Beast boy suddenly cried, pumping his fists in the air. He laughed a high-pitched, jovial laugh.

"Dude, sit down," Cyborg said. Raven used her arm to pull the green teen down. He made a jerking squeak as his butt met the chair. Starfire suddenly started thinking.

"Would this not make Cora friend Terra's daughter, seeing as she has the same powers and looks exactly like her?" she asked. Beast boy's eyes widened, and he smiled.

"TERRA!" he shouted, standing up again. Raven jerked him back down. He squealed.

"Uh...I think so.." Robin said, though it confused him as well.

"But then how would she have been alive?" Raven asked. Cyborg shrugged.

"I dunno, maybe BB was actually right when he said he saw Terra at that place," he said. Beast boy smiled, then sprung out of his seat once more.

"_Yeah!_ I was right!" he shouted. Then he blinked, his excitement gone. "Then does this mean she has amnesia or something?"

Raven pulled him down again. He squeaked. Starfire held her finger over her lips, thinking again.

"And would that make Duncan _my_ bumgorf, seeing as he has features like mine and possesses starbolts like mine as well as super-strength?" she asked. Robin's eyes widened, though you could barely tell with the mask 'n all.

"Huh," Cyborg said. "I guess this means you marry someone with blue eyes, Star!"

"Blue eyes are good, yes?" she asked. Robin seemed to get a tad nervous, though barely anyone noticed. He chose then to go on with his tale.

"Er...right...uh...and...er...well...um..._my_ reaction to Zak's statement was more shock than anything...**)**

I looked at the green teen like he was crazy. "He's your _dad?_" I almost shouted, shocked beyond belief. Zak blinked.

"Yut-oh," he said. Mary then grabbed Zak's hat off his head and whapped him with it.

"Ow!" he cried, cradling his cranium. She must hit hard.

"You just told Robin who dad was—even if it was on reflex or something, but whatever! Now he's probably gonna tell all them back in his time an' then dad's gonna be all freaked 'n swear off girls forever 'n we won't be born 'n people 'll be dead 'cause we weren't there to save 'em an'..an'...and the robot's'll start making robot monkeys with superpowers that'll destroy us all and–"

"Woa, Mary, _Chill!_" Ty cried.

**(**"She's definitely Beast boy's kid," Raven muttered, which caused Cyborg to laugh. Beast boy glared at him.**)**

"Nothings going to go wrong, and you'll still be here," he continued. "Its not like your fading out or anything..."

Mary tapped her chin, looking like she was deep in thought. Then she shrugged. "Meh, point taken." She placed Zak's hat back on his head, then patted it lightly, flashing him a smile. "Sorry, bro."

Zak held his hat tightly to his head, inching away from the female changeling. Ty held his hand to his face and sighed. Duncan smiled an unsure smile, chuckling softly.

I kinda felt out of place then. The way they acted, and how Mary suddenly started tickling Zak, made it seem like this happened on a daily basis. I took out the Time Travel Disk and looked at it: 95:49:53. I clipped it back to my belt, but felt something like a cold chill...like something—or someone—watching me.

I turned around, but found no one. Duncan seemed to catch on to my uneasiness.

"Something the matter, Robin?" he asked. Robin, though, sounded weird and foreign coming out of his mouth just then. Mary stopped noogying her brother, and they looked at me.

"It...felt like I was being watched," I said.

"Watched? Like that creepy sixth-sense kinda thing where you think someone's there, but you turn around and there's nothing?" Mary asked, moving her fingers in a 'woooo scary' kind of way.

"Yeah...something like that..." I said. I turned back to them.

"Dude, there's nothing to worry about," Ty said. "We're all human here. Friends to boot. No bots or spies or anything to be suspicious of is present within these walls."

"See, Mr. Robin? Nothing to worry about!" Mary said, smiling. I raised a brow.

"'Mr. Robin'?"

"Its either that or Uncle Robbie," she said, shrugging nonchalantly.

"She has this thing with nicknames," Ty said, holding a hand to the side of his mouth, as if it would keep her from hearing. Instead, she nodded proudly.

"Yup! Now, c'mon Zaky, we gotta finish giving Robbie the tour!" She linked her arm with Zak's and started hopping around him. I watched, but got dizzy doing so.

"What is there left to show him?" Zak asked, holding onto his head with his other hand. He tried to keep looking at Mary, but failed.

"Uuuuh...where he'll be sleeping?" Duncan tried.

"Ooooh, right...right..." he said. Then he yanked his arm out from Mary's grasp.

"So. To the room," Ty said, as Mary bounced happily down the hallway.

**(**"_Definitely_ Beast boy's kid," Raven said.**)**

We followed, but I still couldn't shake the feeling of being watched I had earlier. Maybe I was just paranoid.

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: Noooo...I own them all. Thats why I'm DC Comics in the flesh. Nah, Jk. I only own the next gen guys. :P**

**Yeah...stopped there 'cause I was losing my muse. Probably the shortest chapter so far. Could count as a filler chapter, since not much happens. Except for the realizations on who will be parents one day. Which will also continue into next chapter.**

**But...finally! An Update! :D  
**

**Yo: If you didn't check out that big chunk in the parenthesis, you should. They think and figure out who some of their kids are (and Beast Boy is really jumpy, then Robin gets flustered about sudden realizations! :D).**

**Mary _does_ have a thing with nicknames, as you have and will see in future chapters.**

**And _Ooooooooooo!_ Suspicious sixth-sense activated for Robin! Who's watching him? _Is_ anybody actually watching him?**

**You tell me! What do you think?**

**That may also be fancy talk for REVIEW! PLEASE!  
**

**CMK.**


	6. What Lurks in the Shadows

_**Future's Folly**_

_Chapter 6: What Lurks in the Shadows...

* * *

_

"So...you've got some creepy shadow stalking you?" Beast boy asked. Robin's eyebrows knitted together, though Beast boy couldn't really tell.

"Er...yeah...we can go with that," he said.

"Y'know, I bet it was just your imagination," Cyborg said. Beast boy suddenly stood up. When Raven reached to pull him down, he swatted her hand away. She left it at that.

"No, _I _think it was Raven's kid!" Beast boy said. Everyone stared at him. "What? Three of us have kids, why not the rest of us? And remember how Raven was all, _stick to the shadows, speak to no one, only come out when necessary_, when we first met her? No one else would act that shy around people!"

Raven pulled the changeling's ear so his face was leveled with hers. He yelped. "Are you calling me _shy?_" she asked through gritted teeth. Beast boy suddenly turned two shades of green lighter.

"U-uh...no! No! Er...uh..its just...a lot of people are like that when they first meet other people! Especially when they come from the past!" He started laughing nervously. Raven gave him a look, but let go of his ear. He thought he was safe, but she then pushed him back down onto his seat.

"But, friend Raven is missing, remember?" Starfire asked, directing the attention of Robin and Cyborg from the two to her. But then she took the statement back. "Although...the bumgorf _could_ have been born earlier..."

"Yeah! So it must be one of the other kids Robin's still gotta meet!" Beast boy said, smiling his happy-go-lucky smile.

"I bet you five bucks that the kid's a boy," Cyborg said. His changeling pal got his game face on.

"You're on! There's no way Raven's kid could be a boy..."

Robin smiled at the bet. This is what he's been missing the past four days, just hanging out with his friends, making useless bets, getting hugs from Starfire, watching as Raven threatened Beast boy...

"Yo, man, you gonna continue with the story? Or am I gonna have ta make it up on my own?" Cyborg asked. Robin shook his head.

"Oh. Right. Uh...where was I..? Oh yeah! We walked down the hallway, following Mary...

* * *

Mary skipped down the hallway, seemingly oblivious to the outside world. This surprised me, seeing as, based on the information I've picked up, she, and another forty people or so, are hiding underground from an 'ultimate evil' that has a robot army and can make people his slave just by connecting robot parts to the person, generally erasing their emotions, memories, and making them systematic, like other machines. Poor Kyris...

Ty hummed a little tune to himself, a small smile lining his lips. Zak had his hands in his pockets, making random shapes with his mouth, occasionally sticking his tongue out and blowing a raspberry or two at the wall. Duncan held on to the ends of his hooded-cape, fiddling with them absentmindedly as he muttered to himself.

It was then that I realized that, for these kids, all the little things in life must really matter a lot. The little joys that were taken for granted back in my time—it still felt weird saying that—these four here were now enjoying, seeing as _for who knows how long_ they had been running and hiding in the shadows, barely able to actually _live_ life.

It would have been weird to see a teenage girl skipping through the halls period back home. She would have attracted stares out of the corners of people's eyes and would have had at least five feet of space between her and the next person. But here, it wasn't looked down upon. It must have been considered some right she and other children of this time were deprived of, and allowed to live through the little things.

My thoughts were interrupted by a little girl's appearance—or, rather, she ran down the hallway and attached herself to Ty's leg. "Tyyy!" she cried happily.

"Hey Z!" he said, lifting the younger girl up. She had dark hair in pigtails and had a bright smile on her face now that she was here. She also had what looked like a pair of bee wings on.

**(**"Hey, now wait a second, y'all," Cyborg said, interrupting the description of the little girl. "That sounds like she could be a mini-Bumblebee. Y'know?"

"Now that I think about it..." Beast boy said, tapping his chin. Raven glanced at him.

"You _think?_" she asked. He grumbled something and crossed his arms childishly.

"Yes! I see now what you are trying to say!" Starfire said.

"Right. And Robin said something about her being Ty's younger sister. And Ty's got tech like mine, if I'm not mistaken," he said. Robin nodded.

"Yeah, except he can remove his. But he chooses to keep it on because he can."

"And I'd only give my tech to family, and seeing as its the future..." He seemed to be leading everybody to put two plus two together and get four. Beast boy's eyes widened.

"Dude! You have kids too!" he said.

"Uh, yeah B, but think harder—if you can," Cyborg said back. Beast boy bit his tongue.

"Uh...Z's named after a letter?" the changeling tried. Cyborg shook his head.

"No, man! I marry Bumblebee in the future!"

It was silent. Beast boy's mouth hung agape. Robin didn't seem to phased. Raven was actually surprised. Starfire, though, smiled grandly and clasped her hands together in a cheery manner.

"Oh, this is wondrous!" she said. "I am most happy for you, friend Cyborg!"

"Yeah...but how am I gonna tell that to Bee?" he asked himself. Robin shook his head as Starfire was about to try and answer the question. She fell silent.

"Right...well, the two seemed very close, unlike most siblings with an eight year age gap...**)**

"Ty! Mom said that since I was good, I get to come spend time with you guys!" she said happily. Ty's smile widened.

"That's great, Z!" he said. Mary came up behind him.

"Hey ZZ! Guess who's here?" she interjected. Z blinked a couple times.

"Uh...your mom?" she asked in her cute-little-girl voice. Mary's tail lowered somewhat and her features saddened.

"No," she said. But she got back to her spunky self.

"Cora's mom?"

"Nope."

"Cora's dad?"

"We got Uncle Robbie in town!"

"Uncle Robbie?" the little girl asked. Mary nodded, then tugged me forward. She held her arms out in my direction, moving her hands in a 'tada!' presentation way. She smiled.

"_Shala!_" She made hand gestures at me, trying to spark something in the little girl. She pursed her lips.

"Its a guy dressed as a traffic light?" she asked, though she probably had no idea what one of those was. I became annoyed.

"I am not a traffic light. That is not my name. I am Robin. _Ro-bin_," I said, trying to specify it for the people present who seemed intent on addressing me as such.

"Robin? Wasn't that who Uncle Nightwing was before he became Nightwing?" Z asked. Mary's smile grew.

"Ding ding ding ding ding! We have a _winner!" _she said, clapping. Duncan shrugged with a smile on his face.

"Yeah...uh...y'know how I had that time travel disk thing?" he asked. Z nodded.

"Ya-huh," she said.

"Weeellll...I accidentally brought Robin back. And now he's stuck here for four days." He smiled one of those smiles that said, 'eh, what can you do?' and shrugged.

"Awww," she chirped, hugging Ty tighter.

"Its okay," Ty said, trying to cheer her up. "Its only four days."

"_Hey!_" Zak called from about eight feet away from us. He must've still been walking when the others had been conversing. They didn't seem all to phased by his behavior. "Are we gonna get there before or after we move?"

"Before!" Mary cried, smiling grandly. She grabbed my arm and started running after Zak, who continued to walk at a steady pace ahead of us. Duncan followed, as did Ty, who was still carrying Z.

Mary eventually slowed down, after I tripped over my feet a couple times ("Sorry, Robbie"), and we eventually reached a door.

Zak opened it and we walked in. There were two bunk beds—one on both the right and left sides of the walls—and a single bed on the wall of the opposite side of the room. Ty walked over and sat on the bottom bunk of the left sided-bunk bed. Z hopped out of his grasp sat down too. Mary suddenly appeared on the top bunk. Zak stretched.

"Well, here it is," Duncan said, gesturing to the room. "You'll be sleeping in that bed," he said, pointing to the lonesome single bed across the room.

"Okay..." I walked over and sat on the mattress, testing its springiness. It seemed comfy, so I laid back, resting my head on the pillow. I closed my eyes, and began reflecting on the day's happenings.

I got sucked into the future. Very painfully. Then I had to run for my life from a hoard of robots, then run_ to _the hoard that I had been trying to avoid so carefully before. I met the Teen Titans of the future. I followed them to some underground base named after the Underground Railroad. I was repeatedly called a traffic light. And now I'm on a bed, reliving the day piece-by-piece.

I opened my eyes and sighed. I blinked a few times, then noticed something in my way of sight.

There, right above me, was a pair of two very familiar looking violet eyes.

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: Me no own-ee. Must me do baby-talk-ee?**

**Ooooo, Cliffy...haha, I'm so torturing you all.**

**This is a part 1 part 2 type chapter. The next one will hopefully be up soon. I bet you all can guess who this is. :3 So...boy or girl? Who knows! Take a guess!**

**Toyed around with the description again. Took out 'well known teen titan', 'cause everyone knows he's a titan. Or else they wouldn't be here.  
**

**So we now have Z in here. Z is sort of a nickname of Zorana, which I thought was cool. And when she was a baby she could only say the first letter of her name, so everyone started calling her Z. Go figure. She's supposed to be one of those cute little girls who loves her big bro and stuff, can be very clingy, but can kick butt too. Whenever I doodle her she's got a smile on her face and a little heart above her head. So know we know who Cyborg marries. Yaaaay..!**

****If you skipped the big chunk in parenthesis, you should know Cy figures out he's gonna marry Bumblebee through logical reasoning. And the fact Z is described sorta as a mini-Bee.  
**

**This story, as far as I'm concerned, with how I'm doing 5+ chapters for one of the four of Robin's days, will probably have lots of chapters. Good for you guys, then, 'ey? :)**

**Thanks for the reviews last chap and the faves and stuff. Even one or two words makes me happy, just knowing you take the time to review makes me wanna write this up faster. So...Review?  
**

**CMK – over and out.**


	7. Might Just be a Lou

_**Future's Folly**_

_Chapter 7: ...Might Just be a Lou.

* * *

_

"This is it!" Beast boy cried. "Has to be Raven's kid! Shush!" he said, shushing everyone around him, as if _they_ were disrupting the story.

Robin rolled his eyes, but continued. "Then...

* * *

"What the—"

I shot up.

My brain must have thought it was the most logical thing to do. Which must have meant my brain was going haywire or something.

I hit the forehead of the figure above me with my own. I received a shout in return. I sat up, rubbing my forehead. The figure stumbled over something, falling back into a corner, where the hood worn fell back to reveal a mop of untamed purple hair.

Once it was silent I stared at him. He stared back at me.

**(**"Aw _dude!_" Beast boy cried, sulking to himself. Cyborg cheered, then held his hand out. Beast boy dug through his pockets and grudgingly stuck a five in his robotic friend's hand.

The two were snickering too, though, since Robin bashed heads with Raven's son.

Robin rolled his eyes again and continued with the story.**)**

"Oh, thats just Louis," Ty said, waving a hand nonchalantly at my shocked expression.

"Or Lou, as we call him," Duncan added, holding an index finger up.

"I call 'im Louie!" Mary pointed out from her top bunk spot, holding her arm up as she tried to make herself the center of attention.

As for me, though, I just continued to stare at the 'Lou' infront of me.

**(**Robin paused. He knew the others would probably think Lou looked like a boy version of Raven.

They only had the hair, eyes, and thing on the forehead—_Chakra_—imagined right. They probably didn't think he'd have pointy ears and pale green skin...

"Hey, get on with it man!" Cyborg said.

"Uh..right...-**)**

He had purple hair and eyes, as I specified before, and a red Chakra on his forehead, sort of hidden by his bangs. He looked like he needed a hair cut.

He also seemed to be wearing a cloak similar—if not, exactly the same—to Raven's. This had me wondering...

**(**Everyone else seemed to be staring at Raven. She raised a brow.

"What?"

"You got a kid, Rae!" Beast boy said. She glared when he said 'Rae'.

"Yes, Raven. Please, how does it feel to know you have a child in the future?" Starfire asked.

Raven didn't really know how to answer that, let alone what to _feel_. She didn't really think it was possible for anyone to actually _like_ her enough to actually ask her out on a date and her to say yes, let alone her get married. But they wanted answers...

"...Louis is a nice name," she finally said. They seemed to accept that.

"And as I was examining his attire, I thought, maybe I should _talk _to him instead of just stare at him all day...**)**

...and I saw that he also seemed to be examining me, and based on the look on his face, I bet he was experiencing some sort of confusion, surprise, and fright.

"So...you're Lou?" I asked. He nodded.

"Y-yes," he stuttered. "And you're Robin." He paused, looking me over. "Do you know you look like a traffic light?"

That reaction was getting old.

"Yes, I do. Your friends here pointed it out multiple times," I said. He nodded to himself. Then he made to speak.

"But how are you he-"

"Time travel. Duncan," Ty interrupted, jerking his thumb at the redhead. Duncan waved and smiled sheepishly. Lou seemed to understand.

"Ah. Yes."

"He brought Robin back on accident."

"Aaaah. Explains a lot."

"Yes."

"Right."

...

"I like pie!" Mary said randomly.

"We know you like pie," Lou said, rolling his eyes.

**(**"Really Rae's kid," Beast boy said. Raven shot him a glare. He shrunk back. Apparently, he couldn't make comments like that. But Raven could. Go figure.**)**

"So thats why you got the 'someone's following me' sixth sense thing," Zak mused, nodding to himself. "Lou here has this thing of, when new people come around, he likes to follow them around to see what they're like and if they'd be good friends or not."

"You could have told me that earlier..." I grumbled, a bit annoyed.

"Yeah...well...uh..." Duncan rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "So...uh...um...ug, I got nothin'."

"Nothin'," Ty repeated.

"Nothing," the redhead agreed.

"So...what now?" I asked.

"What if we were too—" Mary began, excited.

"No," Lou said, his voice deadpanned. Mary thought some more.

"How about—"

"No."

Mary growled in annoyance.

"What if—"

"_No._"

"Do you even know what I'm gonna say, Louie?" Mary demanded.

"Yes, I do. And its stupid, so don't even say it," he said.

**(**Cyborg and Beast boy laughed at the conversation between the two. It sounded like something Beast boy and Raven would fight about. Starfire laughed in good nature with them. Raven didn't really laugh. She just sat there. Listening.

Robin went on with his recollection.**)**

Zak snorted while Duncan bit hit lip, to keep himself from laughing. Ty tried his best to control his laughter, but it still came out like it was choked back. Z giggled.

"You're so mean sometimes, Louie-boy!" Mary growled, smiling while she said it. Lou looked directly at her for the first time in the conversation.

"Don't call me that. Its Lou, or Louis."

"Right. And I'mma be the queen of Conneticut."

"Do you even know what Conneticut is?"

"Yeah, no thanks to you and your stupid lectures—"

"They are _not_ stupid—"

"Oh, riiiight..."

After the fight-to-be was stopped from taking place, we decided to move out of the room. It still felt very strange to be around these guys, but it was something I was going to have to get used to.

So the rest of the day went on as pretty much normal...Or, as normal as it could get in a future where you're hiding underground from some cunning robot menace.

It was hard to really explain what I felt throughout that first day there. It was so confusing. I hung around the Teen Titans of the future mostly, though. I didn't really feel like hanging out with an older me.

We wandered around the place as they talked to each other. They tried to include me in their conversations, but it was hard to say if it was actually working or not.

Cora came and joined us a while later. She seemed kind, lax, and easy going, and she seemed like the person who would try to please everybody. She and Duncan seemed to get along well, but at the same time were very nervous around each other.

"Red's got a crush on Cory," Mary whispered to me. Duncan had bumped into Cora when she was walking towards us, so the two of them were now blushing madly and spluttering nonsense to each other that seemed to form an apology. "And Cory's got one on him too. They're just to stubborn to admit it."

"Huh?" I asked, unfamiliar with the names.

"She means Duncan's got a crush on Cora and vice versa," Ty said. I gave him a look. He shrugged. "Told ya she has a thing with nicknames."

Dinner came around—it wasn't really much, just some food they had managed to scavenge from the remains of the city above and some of what Duncan had saved from the buffet—and apparently they had an all around curfew for everybody. So Mary, Cora and Z went off to wherever their room was, while Duncan, Lou, Ty, Zak and I went off to the room we had been in earlier.

Zak had the top bunk on the left side. Ty took the bottom one. Duncan took the bottom one on the right side, while Lou climbed up—book in hand—and took up residence in the top one. I went over to my lonesome little single bed and layed down, trying my best to sleep.

A while after unsuccessfully trying to force myself to sleep, I heard someone call my name.

"Robin...!"

I sat up slightly and looked in the direction of the voice; it was Ty. He wasn't wearing the tech on the left—well, his left my right—side of his face anymore, so he looked more like a normal teenage boy.

"Oh, hey," I said. "Something the matter?"

"Oh..well...uh...no," he said, chuckling. He rubbed the back of his neck, smiling embarrassedly. "Er...actually, I wanted to ask you something."

"Like what?" I asked.

"Like...what's it like?" he asked. The question confused me.

"Huh?"

"In your time, I mean. What's it like?" he rephrased. I paused, wondering how to answer the query.

"Uh...well...its...sunny...and...kids play..."

"Is the sky blue?"

I stared at him for a moment. "Yes..." I began. He smiled to himself forlornly.

"Heh. Really miss the blue, y'know?" he said, his eyes expressing sadness and longing. I felt sorry for him and the rest of the people then.

"Yeah..." I muttered, already missing the ever familiar color.

I laid my head back on my pillow. Memories of the good times I've had in the sun overflowed my thoughts. But Ty didn't seem to be done yet...

"And as long as your here, Robin," he said, "We're gonna keep you safe. So don't worry."

I nodded.

"And no, we aren't talking about you," he suddenly said, surprising me. I sat up and gave him a look that said 'excuse me?'. He was looking at Lou, though, who appeared to be reading.

"Lou," he said.

"I'm not listening," Lou immediately said, holding the book closer to his face.

"Right..." Ty smiled devilishly to himself. "The book's upside down, y'know."

"No its not!" Lou cried, digging his nose further into its pages. Ty laughed. "I _can_ and _like_ reading upside down, okay?" he said, making Ty laugh even more.

I smiled, then layed back down, going to bed with a new sense of peace.

* * *

"That was, 'sweet', yes?" Starfire asked. Robin nodded.

"Uh, yeah, I guess it was, Star," he said. The team seemed content that they heard of Robin's first day in the future.

"Dude, I can't believe I'm gonna be a dad," Beast boy said. "I wonder who I marry..."

"I too wish to know who I am married too," Starfire said, "And Duncan sounds like a most joyful boy. Oh how I wish to meet him!"

Cyborg was quietly contemplating to himself; probably on how, where, and when he would ask Bumblebee out. Good thinking, Cyborg.

"I wonder what would happen if all of them suddenly appeared out of nowhere, right here, right now!" Beast boy fantasized, holding his arm out infront of him like people tend to do in movies when telling someone to imagine something.

"Don't jinx us," Raven said. Beast boy's arms fell to his sides.

"Oh, right. 'Cause that'd be really bad, if they showed up all of a sudden," he said.

"Even if some of us really want to meet them," Cyborg added, coming out of his thoughts.

"Yeah, what he said," Beast boy agreed.

"It seems that Robin does not have an offspring in the future," Starfire said.

"Maybe he just didn't meet him or her," Raven said.

"Maybe..." Robin agreed, thinking it over. It was quiet for a while.

"So...are we gonna get on with the story?" Beast boy asked, drawing the boy wonder out of his thoughts.

"What? Oh, right..."

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: Teen Titans is not mine. Done deal. I created the Titan's Kids based on them, gave them personalities 'n stuff, and wrote this. Now you know what is and isn't mine.**

**Woo~! Continued from last chap! Some a' you thought it was Raven, sorry to burst your bubble *Plz don't kill me* See how the titles, when put together, form a sentence? *Brick'd*  
**

**So yeah...had to put in the 'you look like a traffic light' thing in there one more time. I think its funny. I just do. So I thought 'why not put it in here?' So I did. I think it was funny that they all asked or called him a traffic light at some point. 'Cause he is one. And he's probably tired of it, but he's a little traffic light boy. *Brick'd again* Probably not gonna be in there anymore. I dunno, maybe it will, maybe it won't.**

**I found my pokemon game that I lost like, three months ago...so thats sorta been consuming my time lately. Hehehe...*plz don't hurt me*  
**

**And now we got the last of the Kids! Louie-boy! Haha, he and Mary are so fun for me to write. :D**

**Aaaaand...Don't forget to review and tell me if you liked this or not! Little words next to the word bubble thingy down there! Clicky! Review-y! Please? :3 Reviews are greatly appreciated! Yeeeeeeeeaaa**—**Did I mention greatly?  
**

**CMK**

**...Review? :D  
**


	8. Q and A, or, Get to know Suzan

_**Future's Folly**_

_Chapter 8: Q and A; or, Get to know Suzan

* * *

_

The next morning I woke up to the sound of snoring. I soon found out that it was Zak. And it was loud. And it barely disrupted the other, still sleeping members of the room.

I could see a pillow covering Lou's head from my spot in the room, possibly drowning out a bit of the snoring. Ty was cringing every so often, while Duncan seemed to not be effected by the snores at all.

I escaped the noise, but found it too quiet outside. It was way to early for anyone else to actually be awake, so I decided to go do some training. After a bit of wandering around, I found the training room the others had shown me yesterday.

On my way over, I had some time to think about some of the things I had seen yesterday that still confused me. Like how this all actually came to happen.

**(**"Dude, if we could go over there—er, then—I'd totally drop a ton of food and maybe a generator there," Beast boy thought out loud. The others wondered _why_ he even said that.

"That's...nice of you," Raven said.

"Why do that?" Cyborg asked.

"So they could play video games and eat and do stuff. I bet they're hungry and probably haven't even done anything like that in, like, forever," he said. His pals remained silent.

"That is still very kind of him," Starfire said. Robin nodded.

"Yeah..."**)**

It also kind of bothered me that I didn't know much about the whole predicament these guys were in, and it bothered me even more that I would probably not be able to research anything unless I could find a computer. Which was very unlikely.

Still walking I boredly toyed with the disk, examining it. The timer on it said its time was somewhere around 78:45:31.

I still wonder what sort of power it ran on...

**(**Cyborg seemed to be thinking this over. Possibly so he could start working out the blueprints...?**)**

The gym didn't have much equipment, but what it had was still good. Upon entering, I found Suzan using the punching bag set up in there. Apparently she didn't hear me come in.

I made to use something else when Suzan's voice caught my attention.

"Hey, Robin," she said casually. "I see you're up."

I jumped slightly in surprise. "Uh, yeah," I said, still a bit shaky.

"You gonna train too?" she asked.

I nodded. "That would be why I'm here."

She nodded, going back to her own buisness. I watched for a moment as she threw some well aimed punches and kicks at the bag. She even started using moves I thought only _I_ knew.

**(**"Robin's future protégé, maybe?" Cyborg mused, shrugging at his own speculation.

"That's some fancy word for student, right?" Beast boy asked. His robotic friend nodded.

Robin's hand rested on his chin as he thought Cyborg's remark over. "Maybe more then a protégé..."

No one had time to question his statement, as he continued on with his tale. Which might make good as an epic poem.**)**

After a bit, she looked back at me. "What, you want the bag?" she asked, a bit roughly. I shook my head, a little nervous by her assertiveness.

"N-no, no...I'm just gonna...do some stretches," I said, pointing to an empty space on the floor. She nodded, so I went and started doing some basic stretches.

After a while, Suzan came over and sat next to me. I continued with my exercise.

"Hey, you're Robin, leader of the teen titans Robin, right?" she asked.

**(**The others were confused by her question at first, but then remembered that there were _other_ Robins. They felt like commenting on it, but couldn't think of anything good to say, so they remained quiet.**)**

I pursed my lips in response to her question. "Yeah. Who else would I be?"

She shrugged. "One of the Batman's sidekicks?"

I smiled at her reply. Batman _did_ have a long line of Robins in waiting after I left, for some reason...

"Mm, yeah. But I quit the sidekick buisness a while ago," I said.

"Understandable," she said, laying back. We were both quiet for a bit. She spoke up. "Well, you know how everyone expects you to know everything?"

I nodded.

**(**The Titans didn't know what to say to that. Each one silently made a point to stop thinking Robin was the worlds largest encyclopedia on everything.**)**

"Yeah, well, what are you suppose to do when you _don't_ know everything? 'Cause sometimes I feel like everyone's counting on _me_ to know if this or that is going to cause this to happen or that to happen just because I'm the oldest...and sometimes I'm just so stressed out with life!" she said, holding her hands on her face.

**(**"Gosh, she must have it rough," Beast boy commented.**)**

"And I have no idea why I'm even telling you all this," she continued, looking up at me. I sat down next to her.

"Well...maybe its because I'm _Robin, leader of the teen titans Robin?_" I asked. She snickered.

"Eh, maybe."

"Are you the leader of your team?" I questioned after that. She shook her head.

"No," she said. "That's more Nightwing's job. We're more of a group of scouts and usually the calvary. We don't really have a leader, but everyone comes to me for a lot of stuff because I'm the oldest."

"Oh."

For a while we just sat there, talking. After a bit, we moved on to some of the other equipment set up there and got to know each other better. Suzan was an interesting person. She faintly reminded me of someone I knew, but I just couldn't put my finger on who...

"So...did you guys defeat the brotherhood of evil already?" Suzan asked, easily lifting some weights. I was taken back by her question.

"What kind of question is that?" I asked.

"Well, I need to know if I can say this or that without giving you spoilers about your future," she explained.

I nodded. "That's a good point...well, yes, we've beaten the brotherhood of evil."

"Huh," she said. "How about Tokyo? Been there yet?"

**(**"Tokyo?" the four other titans inquired.

"Getting to that," Robin said. That only made them more anxious.**)**

"Tokyo?" I asked. "We go to Tokyo?"

She paled a bit. "Er...forget I said that, okay?"

Too late.

**(**"Okay...so we go to Tokyo?" Beast boy asked.

"Apparently," Raven said. The green changeling pumped his fist into the air.

"Alright!" he cheered. Cyborg rubbed his chin in thought.

"Something important must happen in Tokyo," he proposed, "For her to put it up there with defeating the brotherhood of evil as a marker to see what she could and couldn't say to Robin."

"Yes...I just wonder _how _important it is..." Robin said.

"I suppose we will have to wait and see," Starfire said. They all nodded.**)**

I chose to ask her some things. "So...you got any powers? You seem to be really strong." I nodded towards her and her lifting. She seemed to catch what I was saying.

"Oh, that? I'm...stronger then the average person, sort of like...superman!" she said, her face looking like she just had a stroke of genius. "And if my eyes start glowing green, don't get worried. That...happens sometimes."

Oh.

**(**"Green glowing eyes...super strength..." Beast boy counted her powers off on his fingers. He came to the conclusion of, "She sorta sounds like a mini-Star."

"Only she does not possess starbolts," the Tameranean said.

"Or does she?" Cyborg mused. "Potential daughter...?"

Starfire's eyes lit up like lights on a Christmas tree. "I would most enjoy having a daughter!"

Robin gave her a small smile. The other three didn't miss this, but instead of mentioning it they urged Robin to get going.

"Okay, okay...well, my thoughts pretty much matched what I said next...**)**

"Oh. Okay, so I won't be worried..." I said. It was quiet for a bit until I asked, "Do you have a family?"

She snorted. "Well, duh I have a family, how do you expect me to exist?"

"Well, you exist, so you must have a family, but are they _alive_ is the question," I said. She nodded.

"Ah. Yes, of course. Mr. I-have-to-know-everything-about-anything." She chuckled. "What, are you gonna ask me when my birthday is next?"

"Maybe..."

"Heh. Well, yes, I _do_ have a family. I've got a mom, a dad, and a little brother. And a cousin. We're really happy together."

"And where are they...?"

"Here. Somewhere. Not like I'm telling you where, though."

"Smart..." I said. She smiled cheekily.

"Thanks, I know."

More time passed; I found out she was sixteen. I actually thought she was a bit older, but hey, she's a little taller then me. Looks can be deceiving. Zak was a few months younger then her. He seemed to have a huge crush on her based on how she said he stuck to her like glue a lot. When I asked her if she had one on him she got flustered and practically shouted 'No!', which led me to believe otherwise...

**(**"Like another certain someone I know...?" Cyborg asked, enjoying all too much the look that came on Robin's face. The boy wonder glared at him, successfully silencing the robotic teen.**)**

Ty was a year younger then the two of them, making him fifteen. Mary and Lou were both fourteen, and surprisingly had the same birthday too. Duncan was thirteen, and Cora was turning thirteen in a few months. Her opinion on Duncan and Cora having crushes on each other matched Mary's. Then she said Z had just turned seven a week ago.

"She grew up during all this," Suzan had said. "She doesn't know what its like to live in the open and not have to hide from every little thing..."

"I feel sorry for her," I replied.

It went on like that for a while, until we were both back at the punching bag. I was holding it steady for her as she punched and kicked it.

"You're pretty good," I commented. "Where'd you learn all that stuff?"

"You taught me," she remarked. "Or, well...Nightwing taught me. But he's you...so...uh, let's just go with I learned it all from you in my past, which makes it your future."

**(**"So, she _is_ your future protégé, Rob!" Cyborg said, glad he was right.

"Yeah, I kinda figured that when she said I taught her what she knows," Robin replied. Cyborg shrugged.

"I was still right though!"

"Of course..."**)**

"I did?" I questioned, and Suzan nodded.

"Yup, how else would I know all your moves?"

"You got me there..."

She _was_ pretty good. She could probably hold her own against some major criminals back home.

_Home..._

The total unfamiliarity of the future made me really homesick. Maybe Suzan knew a thing or two about how this all came to be...?

"Hey," I began, "Do you know why the sky is red?"

"Hm..." She pursed her lips in thought. "_Sky red, sky red, means time for bed, sky blue, sky blue, you know I love you..._" she suddenly recited, like it was a nursery rhyme. This left me confused.

"...What?"

"Oh." She must have figured that she said that aloud. "Uh...that's a little rhyme that me and my dad made up. Uh...didn't mean to say it out loud...hehe..."

**(**Beast boy repeated the rhyme aloud, then smiled and said, "Nice rhyme!"

"It reminds me of poetry from my home planet!" Starfire said. "There is one that sounds similar to it, but it is thirteen verses long..."

"Uh, maybe I'll just go ahead with the story and we can save the poetry for later?" Robin asked. Starfire nodded. He successfully just saved the group from Starfire's long Tamaranean poetry.**)**

"Oh. Nice rhyme. Really creative," I said. She gave her next punch a little extra juice.

"Yeah," she agreed. "Creative may as well be my middle name. Now, the sky being red? Cyborg said it was because the ultimate evil used the satellites to put a perception filter around the planet to keep aliens away and make the people submit to it. The red color is just a side effect. Cyborg's been messing with satellite communication to mess with the filter somewhat, but he's only managed to make it loosen up on the people submission."

"'Ultimate evil'?" I asked. "I think Duncan mentioned that yesterday..."

"Oh, yeah. The ultimate evil, basically, nobody knows too much about it, except Nightwing and all them. It's the guy with all the robots and the sky-alternating thing, and it currently resides in the tower," she explained.

**(**"Woah, the ultimate evil that made the future like that is_ living in the tower?_"

They were shocked. Actually, shocked was an understatement. They were _freaked._

"That explains the electric fence," Raven said.

"My thoughts exactly," Robin agreed.

"But..._how_ did we get kicked out of our _house?_" Beast boy asked, totally forgetting it had happened before.

"I believe it may have been an ambush," Starfire said, remembering the last time it happened.

"And it explains why we're not in the tower and hiding underground..." Cyborg thought out loud, stroking what might have been an imaginary goatee.

"Maybe if we're all really quiet, Robin will tell us what happened," Raven said, her voice dripping in monotone. The others silenced and the story moved on.**)**

"That explains the electric fences!" I cried.

"Yeah, they've been up since this whole thing started up eight years ago," she said. I was surprised.

"Eight years?"

"Eight years. That shock you?"

"No. Well, yes...I'm just surprised there's enough food left to have been divided up for this many people in eight years."

"Sometimes we don't eat for a couple days," she said. "Sometimes we don't find food, so we just go hungry."

**(**"Totally reimbursing my ton-a-food idea to give to them idea! Who's with me?"

"..."

"...Oh, right...Robin, you know how to work that time travel thingamabob?"

"No."

"Oh."**)**

I didn't really know how to respond to that, so it was just left alone.

"So how did we get kicked out of the tower?" I asked, breaking the silence.

"None of you really talk about it, but from what I remember, it was an ambush from the inside," she recalled. "But it wasn't anyone on the team's fault, it just...happened."

"Hmm..." I thought over what she had said.

"Yeah, it puzzles me too," she agreed. I decided to ask her something else.

"Hey, has Starfire ever told you about that one time she went to the future?" I inquired.

"That time? Yeah," she said, smiling. "Sometimes we all pretend to be stuck in situations like that and play out what it would be like like that..."

"Yeah, well, there's one thing that's really been bothering me."

"Which is...?"

"Which is, that when Starfire went to the future, she didn't have a future self, but I'm in the future, and Nightwing's there too, and he's _me_."

"And this is a problem how?"

"Basically, I'm defying all the known laws of physics _and_ logic by being here," I said.

**(**"I also wondered why that was so," Starfire said. The others nodded in agreement.

"Its getting there." This only made them more anxious then before.**)**

She stopped mid-punch to think. "Well," she began, "From what Ty's told us from working with Cyborg on this, it's the same tech Warp used, but modified."

"I noticed that."

"But with Warp's version, the user either returned to their time or they didn't. The outcome was still being decided when Starfire was in the future, hence her 'disappearance'."

"And now?"

"You go back to your time. That's what the timer's for, it times how long you stay in one period, so in a sense you're not stuck in the time period, meaning you don't damage the time line. At least, that's how I think it goes..." she explained.

"Which is similar to what Duncan told me, which is why I'm still stuck here for the next three days..." I said. "Makes sense."

Suzan shrugged boredly in response.

**(**"So putting a limit onto how long you're in a certain period keeps you from damaging the time line..." Cyborg mused. "Genius!"

"I know, right?" Beast boy said, laughing good naturedly.**)**

"But what I don't get is that it's counting _down_. It should have timed out when Duncan came back, but it's _still_ going down."

"Well...when we were chasing Duncan he was messing with it. I think that's what got it to the four day time total," I said.

"Huh." She nodded. "He might have managed to override the original time limit. Ty was talking about installing that into the system, but he said he only got a basic skeleton in there."

"Hm." That made sense.

She gave her next punch all she had, actually ripping a hole in the bag. I jumped back. She grinned sheepishly.

"Hehe...oops?"

"Looks like we're gonna need a new punching bag," I said.

"I'll go get the duct tape," she said, pulling her hand out of the punching bag.

"We can do something else, can't we?" I asked. She couldn't really be serious about the duct tape...

"I'm serious about the duct tape, there's some in the closet down the hall," she said, jerking her thumb at the door.

"No, no...we can do something else."

She shrugged. "If you say so."

It turns out we had already used all the equipment the training room had to offer, so we decided to sit for a bit against the wall.

"So...you _do_ know we don't have any hair gel, right?" she asked, ruffling my messy hair. I groaned.

"Don't mess it up more then it already is!" I said, slapping her hand away. She laughed at my scowl.

"I think it looks good on you," she said.

"Yeah, right," I said, rolling my eyes.

"E-hem." Someone cleared their throat, both of us looking up to find Duncan. He wasn't wearing the cape today, so he looked more like a bystander then anything.

"Oh, hey Duncan," Suzan greeted.

"Hey, Suzan. I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" he asked. We shook our heads.

"No."

"Oh, 'kay. A couple things, then," he said. "One, we're going out scavenging today, remember?"

Suzan's expression showed that she remembere. "Oh yeah."

"Two, I don't really think you should mess with Robin's hair," he continued.

"You should listen to him," I said. She rolled her eyes and playfully punched my arm.

"And three...Zak told me to give you this." He pulled out a flower. A rose, to be precise. It took me a moment to realize it was an _origami _rose.

**(**"So...my kid's giving Robin's future protégé an origami flower?" Beast boy asked.

"Someone's trying to be a little romancer." Cyborg chuckled.

"That's my boy!" the changeling said happily.**)**

"Zak told you to give me a flower?" Suzan asked, giving him a look that said 'really?'.

"Well, its more of an origami flower, that he made, because all the other flowers are like, y'know, _dead_, and it was more like he forced me to give it to you," Duncan explained, scratching the back of his head as he did.

"So why is Zak forcing you to give me an origami rose?" she asked.

"He said I owed him for the sugarhigh incident," the redhead explained.

"No, I mean, why is he giving me an origami rose?" she rephrased.

"He said he read a book and the guy gave the girl a rose, and it was romantic, so he told me to give you this." He held the craft up and waved it around.

"Him? Read a book?" Suzan snorted. "Don't make me laugh."

She stood up and took the crafted paper rose out of his hands anyways, examining it. I stood up next to her.

"You sure you don't like like him?" I asked. Suzan's grip tightened on the origami flower. Duncan inched away quietly.

"I'm sure," she said, looking flustered. Then she walked out of the room. Duncan fidgeted for a bit.

"Uh, bye," he said quickly, then ran after the older girl. "Hey! Wait up!"

This left me alone. I decided to go find the others.

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Teen Titans. So put those lawyers down, plz, kthnx.**

**Hold them rotten tomatoes and stuff back too. I'm back baby! After...Wowzas, almost two weeks. (hehe...) Been real busy lately, with a bunch of stuff you probably don't want to know about...so I'll just say I was busy rewriting this 'cause I didn't like how it first came together, which is true. And I may have had writers block. I hope this is good. Please enjoy the (delayed but hopefully pleasing) update. (over THREE THOUSAND WORDS! :O)**

**...One thing I always get annoyed by in those time travel future fics is that they don't follow the logic set up by the episode _How Long is Forever?_ Starfire was taken out of the time line, had no future self, so I _think_ that would mean that was how any time travel thing would work. But apparently people leave that out in stories (even if including it in the story would make it pointless, but whatever) or just don't know. So I put the timer on there, which _has _to send Robin home, so in turn the time line is not damaged and he has his future self there. So now you know. How's that for logic?**

**I tried working on the Robin voice thing. Hopefully this sounds more like something Robin would say.**

**This chap has some background to the whole story (where it takes place in the series, the whole robots-parading-around-the-city-stuff, sky being red, etc.) and some Robin-Suzan bonding time. Good, yes?**

**And I made that rhyme up on the spot. I like it. :D You?**

**Why not drop off a review for the heck of it? Please? Reviews = LOVE! :D And maybe free cookies! :3**

**CMK**


	9. Omfg Muffinz

_**Future's Folly**_

_Chapter 9: Omfg Muffinz.

* * *

_

I found Cora, Ty, and Lou in the playroom. Cora and Ty were entertaining some of the kids who were awake, while Lou was picking up some of the toys they forgot to clean up when they moved on to their next activity. Ty saw me out of the corner of his eye, then turned and waved at me.

"Hey, Robin!" he said. "Duncan went to grab Suzan, so they could go out with Mary and find some food. Zak should be around here somewhere...until then, its just us here. Everyone else is either packing or asleep."

"Okay," I said, even though I already knew Duncan and Suzan were gone by now. Ty nodded, going back to the dragon toy he was making roar at a little girl's knight. Though instead, she looked up at me, curious.

"Hey! You're Robin, right?" the little girl asked; it took me a minute to realize she was the little girl from yesterday, whose father was probably still in the med bay.

"Yeah," I said.

"Thanks for saving me and my brother and my dad," she said. "You and Ph—"

"Duncan," Cora cut in, as if on reflex.

"You and Duncan are really cool!" she said, emitting waves of happiness and gratitude.

I nodded. "You're welcome."

She giggled and went back to playing with the few other children there. I sat down, bored.

"So, did you sleep well?" Cora asked.

"As well as I could," I replied. She nodded.

"That's still good," she said.

"I guess..."

**(**"This is getting boring," Beast boy commented.

"Yeah, well, just be patient," Robin said, remembering clearly what had happened a short time after the scene he was telling. And what happened after that. "It won't stay boring for long."

This got Beast boy focused and waiting. Again.**)**

So things went slow for the first few hours of that second day. I caught Lou playing (sort of) with a dinosaur toy, amusing himself.

**(**"I can't really picture a kid of Rae—" Raven glared, "—_ven _playing with dinosaur toys. Its sort of unreal," Beast boy said.

"He's not just my kid," Raven said, rolling her eyes. "He's someone else's too." She paused. "I never thought I'd find myself saying that."

The others nodded and muttered some words in agreement. Deep down inside they felt they were too young to know they were going to be parents in the future, let alone talk about their children like it was an everyday matter.**)**

Bored, I stared at the wall, switching between that, watching the others play, and staring at the time travel disk; it went from 77:32:01 to 77:02:11 before Z walked in the room, a tired look on her face.

"Hi," I greeted her. She looked at me, her brain most likely processing what I just said.

"Your hair looks different," she said simply, then dragged her feet along the ground as she walked off. This left me confused.

"Uh, yeah," Ty said, chuckling nervously. "She's...like that when she wakes up."

"Blunt?" I asked. He nodded. Strange seven year old...We looked over at Z to see her face down on the floor. She groaned and flopped herself over.

"Mary keep you up late with her talking again?" Ty asked. She nodded. He grabbed a stuffed bear and handed it to her. "Here."

She took it and layed her head on it. Ty ruffled her hair affectionately, like lots of older siblings do, then went back to the other kids.

**(**"What a nice older brother," Starfire said.**)**

Time passed. Lou pulled out a book, that from what I could see it was about vampires, but not the sparkly kind. Ty and Cora continued to watch and play with the kids, and Z groggily tried to keep herself awake.

"So...you're into vampire stories?" I asked Lou. He looked up from the page he was reading, and answered my question.

"Not all the time, but I haven't read this one yet." I nodded.

"Ah."

"Yeah."

"I see."

"M-hm."

"Cool."

"Right..."

"So...what kind of books do you like to read, then?" I asked.

"Fantasy, Sci-fi, sometimes horror...maybe something about reptiles or aliens..." he listed a few more genres, then said one that surprised me. "And recently, I've found I like comedy."

**(**The Titans were quiet. And surprised. And shocked. But mostly surprised. Raven's kid liking comedy? Did the world go mad or something?

"Is that even _possible?_" Beast boy asked.

"Like I said before," Raven said, annoyed, "He's not just my kid. He's someone else's too."

The changeling blinked a few times, trying to let the thought soak in. He finally shrugged, then said, "Ah, looks and personalities can be deceiving, right? And I just know it, Rae, you _love_ my jokes!"

Raven's eyes narrowed.

Starfire giggled, placing her hand over her mouth in a very Starfire-like fashion. Robin continued before anyone could voice a complaint (namely Raven—due to Beast boy's comment—or Beast boy—due to Raven possibly wapping him sometime soon.).**)**

"Comedy?" I asked. He gave me a look.

"Yeah, but not too much. Only because Mary's been forcing me to read it or else she wouldn't give me my books back," he said.

**(**"Oh, that sounds reasonable," the changeling commented.**)**

"Why, is something wrong with me and liking comedy?"

"Oh. Uh, no," I said. "It's just...you don't look like the comedy type of person."

He pursed his lips, thinking, then shrugged. "Mm, I get that sometimes."

Before I could respond, I heard someone running. Lou probably did too, as he tensed. Then the door was busted open by a determined looking Mary.

**(**"Yes! Some action!" Beast boy cried happily.**)**

Most of the inhabitants of the room jumped, startled by the sound of door hitting wall. She held a plastic box that it was full of chocolate muffins.

"Muffins!" She cried happily.

"Mary! I thought you would have at least been gone for another half hour!" Cora exclaimed.

"We came back early," she said simply. Cora paused, thought it over, then nodded.

"Ah. Okay."

Then Mary held up the box. "_Muffins!_"

"Muffins?" Ty asked, surprised.

"Muffins!" she repeated, a third time, opening the box and breaking a chunk off of the chocolaty treat. She then stuffed it in Ty's mouth. He nearly choked on it.

**(**"Crazy girl..." Cyborg muttered. Beast boy glared.

"Hey! That's my _daughter _you're talking about!" he said.

"Yeah, and she's crazy," he said again. Raven got in between them, successfully stopping lightning from coming out of their eyes and firing at each other.

"Let's just say she's a bit unusual," she proposed. They grudgingly agreed on that.**)**

But he managed to swallow it anyways, just in time to see Mary bounce around the room with the muffin box high above her head.

"MUFFINS! WOO! YEAH! HAHA! ALRIGHT! YEAH! HAHA!"

"She's crazy," I said, eyeing her warily.

"What else is new?" Lou asked, his voice deadpanned.

**(**"See? Even Robin and Lou agree," Cyborg said. Beast boy growled.

"Unusual, remember?" Raven said, stopping yet another argument.**)**

"She _may_ be crazy," Ty began.

**(**Cyborg smirked.**)**

"But she _is_ kind," he finished up.

**(**Beast boy cheered this time around.**)**

I watched as she offered the children chunks of chocolate first, who took them gladly, then pulled a chunk off and gave it to Cora. She passed some of it to Z then, and Lou, and finally gave one to me.

I took it, and looked at it curiously.

"It shouldn't be bad," she said. "Muffins are _awesome_. Period."

**(**"Well spoken," Beast boy said.**)**

I shrugged and ate it. At least it was still good, and enough to make my stomach feel full for awhile.

I thought that I'd take back that thing about her being crazy...

**(**"HA!"**)**

She then took the second to last chunk of chocolate muffin and gobbled it down heartily. She smiled, licking her lips.

"That was good," she said.

It was quiet for a while, until Zak rushed in, gasping for air, leaning on the door frame for dear life. Mary snapped her fingers in rememberance.

"Oh yeah! Last chunk's for you, bro!" she said, holding the box out for him. He shook his head. She grew confused. "You don't want muffins?"

"N-no, I _want_ a muffin," he said, "But...did you tell them already?"

"Tell us what?" Ty asked.

"Oh, no, I forgot," she said, chuckling. "Muffins 'n all."

He gave her a serious look. "Mary. They're just muffins."

"But muffins are _awesome!_" she cried, holding the box close, like he had just insulted her. Which he might have, in her own little world.

"_They're just muffins, dangit—!_"

"What's so important?" I cut in.

He took his hat off and ran his free hand through his unruly hair. "You are _not_ gonna believe this..."

"What? Believe what?" a kid asked.

"Cora. Cora..." he started, then swallowed. Cora, confused, stood up, still holding toys.

**(**"I am growing worried for Cora," Starfire said. Beast boy nodded.

"Same here."**)**

"...What?" she asked. Zak hissed, then continued.

"Cora. Cora..._your mom is back._"

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: I have not, will not, and never will own teen titans. I just thought this idea up and wrote this, alright?**

**So here we are. Chapter 9. Back again, little delay, took a while, sorta short, but still good. Lots of good things in here. Even if its short-ish. Stuff like getting to know the other kids more. And._.._**_**Cora's mom is back.**_** (And a cliffhanger, oh shizz-noodles! I am so evil XD) I bet a lot of you have figured out who Cora's mom is, no doubt, and have probably been wondering where she's been, but if you don't know who she is or don't wonder that, just wait a see, 'kay? 'Kay. :)**

**And **_**wowzas. **_**Eight reviews for the last chapter! That's the most this story's gotten for one so far! Thank you, people of the world! :D (And yeah, this would have made a good episode in the show before Tokyo. :D)**

**An explanation for Lou and Robin's conversation: How would you talk to a socially awkward fourteen year old who stalks potential friends and finds enjoyment in reading books and arguing with a certain green haired female?**

**...**

**...**

**...Yeah I don't know how he's survived at life either.**

**So in the spirit of...this-ness...please review! Please! I love to hear what you guys think!**

**CMK :)**

**P.S. I hope this chapter pleases your appetite. Thanks, have a nice day, and please review. :)**


	10. Enter: Cora's Mom and Company!

_**Future's Folly**_

_Chapter 10: Enter: Cora's Mom and Company!

* * *

_

When Robin finished up that last part, the room was filled with silence. Then it was suddenly interrupted with loud questions from the four other titans.

"So wait, Terra is Cora's mom, right?"

"She is back? Where did she go?"

"Hmm...so, she went away? Or was she captured and somehow managed to escape?"

"Wait wait wait," Beast boy said, "If Cora's mom, is, like, back, and Terra is her mom, then that means..."

_Epiphany!_

"You knew she was Terra's daughter this whole time!" he shouted. The gazes of Starfire, Cyborg, and Raven focused on Robin. Intensely. He coughed.

"I may have...forgotten...to mention that..." he said, avoiding his friends' gazes.

"How much stuff are you going to 'forget' to mention?" Raven asked. She sounded a tad annoyed.

"Depends on what I remember and when I remember it," the boy wonder replied.

"But...where was Terra?" Beast boy asked.

"Somewhere. I'm still a bit foggy on that. Something about a base out of town..."

"Oh."

Insert short silence here...

"...So anyways..."

* * *

Okay, recap.

"_Cora. Cora..._your mom is back._"_

It was awkwardly quiet. The truck—some sort of vehicle, that much I'm sure—fell out of Cora's now limp hand and landed on the ground with a thud, one of the wheels falling off. Everyone stared at Zak like he was crazy.

"_That's_ not as important as _muffins?_" Cora demanded, her voice shrill. Mary shrugged.

"Muffins are awesome. Done deal." Cora looked like she wanted to choke the girl right then.

"This is _Mary_ we're talking about," Lou said, standing up. "I think she's a bit messed up in the head or something..." He made a crazy sign.

Mary glared, pursing her lips. She growled a bit. "Nu-uh! I'm not messed up! Dad says I'm _unique!_"

"Uniquely messed up..." Lou grumbled.

"Guys, _Cora's mom is back,_" Ty said, coming between the two. "I think this is a bit more important than one of your guys' argument."

"It's not an argument! It's just a very loud and vocal disagreement!" Mary said.

"Same thing!"

"Guys! My _mom?_" Cora said, looking very, _very_, impatient.

"Who _is_ your mom?" I asked.

"Terra." Just about everyone in the room responded this. Almost at the same time. Like it was instinct.

**(**"That's when I found out," Robin said. His statement was met with several nods from his friends.

"Okay."

"Anyways..."**)**

Shocked and given no time to respond, I, and practically everyone—even the half asleep Z—was dragged out of the room. The few children there decided to sneak around and watch from the sidelines.

Running to the lobby-like room that reminded me of a waiting room at a pharmacy, I saw Nightwing talking to an obviously older looking Terra. Suzan and Duncan were there too. Once they saw us coming they relaxed a bit.

But Suzan then hissed, "Took you long enough!"

"I had muffins to pass out!" Mary said loudly. She was shushed rather loudly too.

"Who cares about muffins? They're not as important as _people_," Suzan said.

"We've already gone through this, it hasn't been of much use to her psyche," Lou said. Mary blinked.

"Psyche? Like if I'm psyched out or something?" she asked. Lou facepalmed.

"Yeah, well, Cora, your mom is over there," Duncan said, pointing to Terra. Cora looked at her, then smiled.

"Mom," she said. She looked like she was about to cry. Which I think is expected. I know I'd cry if I saw my mom again...

**(**No one commented on this. They wanted to see their moms too. A lot. So they understood where he was coming from. Plus, they were getting really absorbed in the story, so to not mess with the flow they kept their yaps shut.**)**

Terra caught sight of her daughter and smiled as well. "Cora!"

Cora ran over and hugged her. "I missed you so much!" she exclaimed.

"So did I, Cora," her mother replied. "How have you been? You okay?"

"Yeah, Mom." She sniffled, then wiped her face. "I've been good..."

So it went like that for a while. It sort of reminded me of those reunions in those movies.

It was quite awkward over here, though. No one really knew _what_ to do except watch. And by the looks on their faces, they were having_ very _different reactions from each other.

Duncan looked relaxed. Suzan mumbled something, looking down. Z snoozed softly. Ty pursed his lips, looking around, a half smile on his face. Lou lowered his eyes. Mary pat him on the back. Zak smiled.

"Don't you always love this kind of stuff?" the green teen asked. I nodded slowly.

"Yeah..."

Cora still hadn't let go of Terra. So the elder blonde had just went with ruffling her hair while talking to Nightwing. I strained to hear what they were talking about.

"So, I see a new face over there. Did you clone yourself while I was gone or something?" Terra asked jokingly.

"No. That's...actually me. From twenty-ten," was Nightwing's response.

"Whoa, really?" Terra sounded surprised.

"Yeah. You know how Duncan had the Time Travel Disk?"

"Yeah, for the mission we were talking about before I...y'know..."

"Well, Duncan went through with the mission and accidentally brought my past self back."

"Really? Must be awkward..."

"It is."

"So anyways, I still have my group back at the edge of town. You gonna send someone to go get 'em?" Terra asked. Nightwing thought this over.

"How many of them came from the base with you?"

"'Bout eleven. No, twelve," she corrected.

"Hm. So, along with getting someone to go get them and lead them back here, we're going to have to get some more food..."

"Ah. Yeah. We _do_ have _some_ food with us," Terra said, "But its only a little. Yeah, we're probably going to have to get more."

"Alright. I'll get the kids ready." Nightwing turned around, coming towards us. Most of them straightened their postures. "Big day today," he began. "Looks like we're going to need food for twelve more, as well as sleeping arrangements made. Since Suzan, Duncan, and Mary have already gone out for food, you guys can stay here and help move the housing arrangements around and such."

"Okay," Duncan and Suzan said, nodding. Mary pursed her lips, looking like she was thinking.

"Zak, Ty, I'd like you two to go and pick up the rest of Terra's friends who came with her from their base. You can go ask her for their position on the map," he continued. "And you can go put Z down before you go out, Ty."

Ty nodded, looking relieved. Zak smiled arrogantly. "Right!" he declared. "We can totally do that!"

"Cora's probably going to want to stay here, so she can. She can help Terra settle in. And Lou, go out and try and find some more food, please." He nodded curtly, signaling he was finished.

Lou nodded as well. Mary, though, jumped up, waving her hand in the air frantically as she shouted.

"OOH! OOH! I WANNA GO WITH LOUIE!" she shouted, bobbing up and down impatiently. Nightwing looked at her strangely.

"You just went out. I thought you'd want to relax a bit..." he stated. She shook her head, her smile threatening to come alive and run off her face.

"Nah! Its _fun_ to go out and sneak around like SPIES!" she said happily.

"Uh...okay then. You can go with Lou," my older self declared.

"Oh joy..." Lou grumbled as Mary latched herself onto him, laughing happily. She then grabbed my hand and raised it up.

"Can Robbie come too?" she asked. It felt awkward, asking for permission for _anything_ from an older me. He looked at me, his gaze asking if I was okay with this.

"It's alright. I can go," I said. Nightwing mulled this over.

"Fine, he can go too," he said. Mary cheered.

"Yes! We'll have so much fun together! It'll be like that old show about the spies and the secret agents and stuff!" she said happily, her arms wrapped around my and Lou's necks. A little too tightly. She failed to notice this, though, and continued talking. "And then Lou can do his impression of a man-eating-walrus and we can sing songs and have so much fun and blah blah blah blah..."

I gave her a strange look as she continued listing different activities. At least she eased up a bit, eventually, and I could breathe again. The others went around and began preparing for their assigned jobs, while Nightwing went off somewhere else.

"Good luck with that," Ty said, waving as he walked past us. I smiled awkwardly and waved back in recognition.

Lou then gave me a look of sympathy.

"Yeah, she's like this," he said, sighing. "It's gonna be a bit..._loud_ for the next while..."

"Uhhh..." I tried to escape her grasp. It wasn't doing any good, though. She'd make a _very _good wrestler...

**(**"Sounds like it," Cyborg muttered.**)**

"...And then we'll go and swing from building to building like spiderman and have oodles of laughs from watching people smash into walls! It'll be _great!_" she said, apparently done with her speech. I coughed.

"Can you let go now...?" I asked. Her arms quickly snapped to her side. I rubbed the back of my neck, as did Lou. Mary smiled brightly at me.

"I'll go get the map!" she declared, skipping away from us. Lou groaned. Suzan and Duncan walked by, looking back at Mary as she skipped.

"I feel sorry for you, Robin," Suzan then said, patting me on the back. "Hopefully she won't turn your brain to mush before you get back. See ya!" With that she flashed me a quick smile, then walked off.

"Bye, Robin!" Duncan said, waved, then walked off as well.

I waved back. Once I turned back to Lou, I saw his eyebrows raised, his expression one of shock and confusion. I raised a brow.

"What?"

"She said she felt sorry for you..." he murmured.

**(**"Well duh, are you deaf or something?" Raven smacked Beast boy.**)**

"Um...yeah?" What, was there something wrong with being sorry for me?

"She doesn't feel sorry for anyone. At least, she doesn't say so _out loud_..." he rephrased, shuffling his hands around. "That's part of the reason why Zak is...Zak around her. Trying to get her to admit that she cares about him and stuff. That, and he's _by far _to touchy and flirty...and determined to do whatever he's got on his mind...the dude should just ease up. _Then, _maybe, she'd like him a bit more."

"Really?" I asked. Right then, I felt something inside me that told me to be angry with Zak. I didn't know why, though, and it was like a buzzing feeling in the back of my head...

"Yeah. But I think she likes him too. It's the only explanation she'd actually blush that much when he tries his stupid pick up lines and junk," he said, then shrugged. "But that's just my opinion. She _could _just be embarrassed easily..."

"Huh." I tapped my chin while thinking. I hadn't been around here that long, and so I didn't know these guys all too much. But all these guys sounded like normal people, just living in a weird situation. They might even manage to fit into the present time back home if they were to go there...

"Yo Louie, Robster! Got the map!" Mary said happily, interrupting my thoughts. But...what the heck, Robster?

**(**"Sounds like someone wanted a lobster," Cyborg commented, laughing slightly.**)**

"'Robster'?" I asked. Even Lou looked confused about the sudden nickname change. "Whatever happened to Robbie?"

"Dunno," she said nonchalantly. "Sometimes I just...go with the flow of what I say. So it may be Mr. Robin, or Robbie, or Robster...or maybe even Robinheimer!"

**(**Beast boy and Cyborg cracked up. "Robinheimer?" Cyborg managed to say though laughs. "Man, that girl's a genius!"

"Totally!" Beast boy agreed.

"Moving on..." Robin said, trying to keep his anger under control.**)**

"Don't call me that last one," I said. She blinked a few times, confused.

"What? Robinheimer?"

**(**They laughed again.**)**

"Yes, that," I said. Lou smirked, probably trying to hold back a laugh.

"Why? It's just Robinheimer..." she said, pouting. I sighed.

"It just...sounds weird. Like wisenheimer," I said. She blinked. Then she smiled.

"Weird? Okay, Robbie! No more Robinheimer out of me!" She quickly smacked a hand on her mouth, though, realizing she had just said it. "No more R-word!"

"Okay." I nodded. She smiled. Lou rolled his eyes, smirking again.

"Okay, _R-word_," he said, making it sound like I was some sort of gangster.

**(**The two boys cracked up even harder then last time.**)**

"Let's get a move on," he continued. "We're losing daylight."

"Losing daylight?" Mary shrieked, actually looking scared. "I don't wanna lose daylight! It's so pretty and light-ey..."

"It's an expression, nitwit," Lou said, rolling his eyes. Mary paused, stopping her whining. Then she blinked.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Huh..."

"Yes..."

"Ah..."

"Be quiet already."

This was going to be a long day.

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own the show Teen Titans, I do not own you, I do not own the stars in the sky or the planets in the universe, I do not own this and I do not own that (except for the this and that that I _do _own) and yadda yadda yadda...you get the point. I do own this laptop I'm using to type this, though. But my parents got it for me, so...bleh.**

**And we're moving along...With _ten chapters_ of this story now completed! Yes! I can't believe theres actually _ten_, I am _extremely_ happy! :) Celebration time! *Dances around like a wacko on sugarhigh* Yaaaaay! Hehe...So, in celebration...*Smothers you all in hugs* :3 SPREAD THE LOVE! Hm...almost fifty review too...halfway to a hundred...! :) **

**Oh! And did you notice how Mary said "Dad says I'm unique!" instead of "_My_ dad says I'm unique!"? Hm? :3 Little hint, and I didn't even do that on purpose...:D Pluuus! More Lou and Mary next chap! The funny duo of the group! Yeah! Really fun for me to write, Haha :D**

**I'm going to try and update again before the weekend, 'cause I start school on tuesday, so I'm going to be busy with school related things and an overnight stay at school on friday and saturday, while sunday and monday are gonna be my make-sure-everything's-ready-and-I'm-fully-rested-and-junk days. Hopefully school won't interfere with updates.  
**

**And so...since I am now out of stuff to talk about...**

**PLEASE REVIEW! :D (Thanks for reviewing last time, btw, your reviews are greatly appreciated. Plz do so again!)**

**CMK**


	11. Scavenging 101

_**Future's Folly**_

_Chapter 11: Scavenging 101

* * *

_

So we went out. The fresh air was good, and I tried to make it feel like I was back at home. But it didn't really work well. So I distracted myself with keeping to the shadows, which was what Mary and Lou were also doing. I tried focusing on areas where food would be evident, like the places marked on the map.

"The X's mean searched, the circles mean we need to search 'em, and the circled X's mean it was searched but might still have loot in it," I recall Mary saying, with the map pulled out, as she tried to put me through a quick course of 'Scavenging 101'. Though I found the material she was trying to force on me redundant. Lou thought so too.

So eventually, we decided on an area of town with a few homes that might still had some resources in them. We quickly made our way over there, and almost made it there perfectly.

Almost.

Mary was making noises. And it was annoying Lou. And me. But mostly Lou.

"Whap! Biff! Ooof! Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na—"

"Mary! _Quiet!_" Lou hissed. She immediately shut her mouth. But then she questioned him.

"But what about you—"

"Can you just be _quiet_ for a minute?" he asked, looking like he was about to break down right infront of her.

**(**"I know how he feels," Raven muttered.**)**

"Hey," I said, coming between the two. "Can we just...take a deep breath and relax?"

"Oh yeah, says bird boy here," Lou grumbled, rolling his eyes. I raised a brow.

"What's that suppose to mean?" I asked.

"_You_ were up in front, so _you_ didn't have to deal with Mary talking your ear off, but _I _did! And she started making random noises that didn't even make any sense!" Lou cried, pulling at his violet hair.

"Isn't that the point of noises?" Mary asked. He glared at her. She shrunk down. "Sorry," she whispered, as quietly as she could.

"Like I said," I continued, "take a deep breath, relax, and calm down."

He rolled his eyes but did as told. He also put his hands on his temples and rubbed them, sighing.

We started up again, this time with Lou infront, and it was pretty much quiet. Until Mary started talking again.

"So...pop quiz! Remember the steps to scavenging?" she asked me. I looked back at her.

"Uh...sorta?" I replied. Her brows rose.

"Really? What's step one?" she asked.

"...Stick to the shadows," I said, remembering that redundant step. I can do that. Anyone can do that. Even she can do that. Even _shadows _can do that.

**(**"Well said."**)**

"Good! Step two?" she questioned further.

"Look on the map for a place that hasn't thoroughly been searched yet," I said. She nodded happily.

"Right!"

"And we already did that," I reminded her. She nodded.

"I know. But you're gonna need to know all this incase you go out again."

"Okay..."

"Now, remember step three?"

"Uh..." I tried remembering the third step. "...Don't leave anything unsearched, any rock unturned, any cupboard unopened, until you get enough food for everyone?"

"Correctamundo!" she said happily. She laughed. A little too loudly. Lou looked back and shushed her. She silenced. Then he rubbed his temples once more.

"Maybe I can find some earplugs on this trip..." he muttered.

"Plus, if you run into robots or just can't find anything, just leave it. Even if you feel down about it. It happens sometimes," she whispered, so the violet haired teen infront of us wouldn't hear. "And lastly?"

"...uh...don't get caught?" I tried.

"And?" She obviously expected more.

"...Don't drop anything?" I said.

"That, aaand?"

"...um..." I wasn't about to admit defeat. So I continued thinking. Mary, though, got impatient easily.

"Have fun!" she finally said, then rolled her eyes. "Gosh, how could you forget that part of the step?"

"That was my next guess!" I said. Really. It was.

"Suuuure." She chuckled.

**(**"Right," Cyborg said, "I have to agree with Mary on that one."

"No, really, it was," Robin protested. Cyborg chuckled that sort of chuckle that told him he didn't believe him.

"Riiiiiight..."**)**

"But, at least you passed Scavenging 101!" she continued, smiling brightly. I smiled, then turned my attention frontward. I decided to talk to Lou.

"So..." I began, "Lou." He turned to the call of his name. "If Terra is Cora's mom, and Beast bo—_Changeling_ is Mary and Zak's dad, does that make you all kids of the Titans?"

He looked at me like I just said the world exploded and we were on Mars. "You're smart," he commented after a moment. "But...I'm not gonna answer that, just incase you get..._ideas_."

"What kind of ideas? It's not like they'd be bad..." I said.

"Uh, it _could_ be bad. You could try and figure out who you marry. Or if you're married at all."

Huh. He had a point.

**(**"A very good point indeed," Starfire commented.**)**

"Good point," I relented. He smiled, probably glad he was right.

He then focused entirely on moving forward, through alleys and windows and broken buildings. We all did. Eventually, Lou stopped, and so I did too. Mary bumped into me though with an "Oof!", but atleast it stopped her.

Lou pulled out the map and looked at it. Then he examined our surroundings. "We're almost there," he announced, folding the map back up.

"Alright," I said. Having traveled by alleyway and broken windows, we were still inside a building. Lou pointed to a building across the street visible through the window.

"That's where we need to be," he said. "We'll have to go across one at a time."

"Alright," I said again. It was easy. Only crossing the street. It didn't have to be made complicated.

"Looooou, you have to _roll_ the map up," Mary whined. Lou groaned, pulled the map out, unfolded it, and rolled it back up.

"There. Happy?"

"Very," she chirped.

"Back to the one at a time thing," he said. "Robin, you go first. Out the window, okay? Mary, you can go after him, through the door, then I'll come afterwards."

"Okay," I said.

"Cool! I'm second!" Mary said happily, bouncing up and down. Lou put his hand on her shoulder, silently signaling for her to stop. She did.

"Good Mary. Now go Robin, I'll send Mary in in a couple minutes." He nodded towards the window. I nodded back, and hopped out of the window.

I rushed across the street, safely making it to the building Lou had specified. I hopped inside through the front door, the lock surprisingly easy to pick.

Once inside, I leaned against the wall. The kitchen was close by. Kitchens meant food.

A moment passed, and I decided to get a head start on foraging. I walked over to a cupboard and opened it up; there were old boxes of cereal (probably no good, judging by the holes in the bottom) and other things, like utensils and cups and fine china.

After a minute, a gray puppy crept into the room, scampering over to me. It morphed back into Mary. She stood up from her crouching position, looked back at the door, then at me.

"Why couldn't you have kicked the door open?" she asked, out of the blue.

"Uh...it's loud?" I replied, going to the next cupboard.

"But its still awesome!" she said. "Like you're doin' a B and E!"

"Aren't we already doing that?" I asked, motioning for the whole room. She paused. Then she shrugged.

"Eh, guess you're right," she said. "So, find anything good yet?"

"Cereal that's probably no good," I said. Mary opened the cabinet I had just closed, pulled out a cereal box, and sniffed it. She made a face.

"Yeck, smells like crud." She put it back, still gagging.

"Told you it was bad," I said. I rummaged through a few more cabinets before moving on to the pantry.

"Had to see for myself," she responded.

Another minute went by, and finally Lou joined us. "Hey," he said, his steps echoing throughout the house. "Find anything?"

"Nope," I said.

"Nothin' but bad cereal," Mary responded. "Smells _horrible..._yuck!"

"I'll take your word for it." Lou bent down and started looking. After a while, we managed to find a thing of Twinkies, which _never_ go bad, so were obviously taken as soon as spotted. We also found a box of fruit snacks, too, and after opening one of the bags inside, they were determined edible.

I'm not so sure this would consist of a healthy meal, but at least it was something.

"Hey look! I found cake in a box!" Mary said, holding a box of cake mix. "Now...how do you get it out?"

Lou sighed.

"You need eggs for that," I said. "And oil. And an oven." She blinked.

"Eggs come from chickens, right?" she asked.

"Chickens, eagles...birds and reptiles," Lou listed. "Basically animals that aren't mammals. Except platypuses."

She nodded. Then she turned into a chicken.

"You are not honestly trying that." Lou looked at her with disbelief. "It'll never work."

After a minute, she morphed back to her human self and sighed.

"No luck," she said, disappointed. "Poor cake in a box...stuck in the box for all eternity..."

"Uh..." Did she honestly think there was cake stuck in a box?

**(**Cyborg laughed at the accusation.**)**

"I'm gonna go see if there's any secret stashes of food or something. Little kids _love_ doing that!" Mary chirped, suddenly happy. She went down the hallway.

"Don't _you_ love doing that?" Lou asked. She paused, looking at him.

"S-so?" she asked, giving him a 'so-what-is-there-something-wrong-with-that-huh?' look.

"Just saying," he said, holding his hands up.

"Oh, hey, look, water bottles," I said, changing the subject. There was a case of water bottles that I just noticed. Water was going to be needed. This would do good for a while.

"We're gonna need a bag for all of this," Mary said. "I bet there's pillow cases in the bedrooms!"

"...That's a given," Lou said, probably questioning her sanity.

"Yeah yeah yeah! Give it to your head!" Mary called back, entering one of the rooms. Lou and I looked at each other, the retort making no sense, then shrugged.

"GAH TOO MUCH PINK!"

**(**"Too much pink?" Beast boy asked. "Sounds like a little girl's room."**)**

Mary poked her head out of the room.

"This is one _messed up _little boy's room," she said. Awkwardness followed.

And Lou couldn't help but burst out laughing. Which looked really out of character on him.

**(**No one said anything. They just stared at Raven, Robin and Starfire remembering that one time when she bursted out laughing for no reason on the rooftop when she had been meditating.

Strange coincidence.

Then Beast boy and Cyborg cracked up at the imagination of both Lou laughing and a little boy's pink bedroom. Starfire laughed with them. Robin smiled and joined in their laughter. Raven let the ghost of a smile creep onto her face.

Life was good.**)**

Lou stopped laughing as suddenly as he began, making it oddly quiet. He raised a brow at my stare.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just...nothing."

So it remained quiet for a while. Until Mary screamed.

"HOLY FITZPATRICK ON A STICK!"

**(**"Say what?" Cyborg's brain rattled at the exclamation.**)**

Startled, both Lou and I tensed. Crashing could be heard from the strange little boy's room Mary was in. I silently signaled for Lou to follow my lead, and we crept along the wall. The crashes and bangs got louder, and Mary's strange outbursts got weirder and weirder.

Finally, the door bursted open, revealing Mary to be clinging desperately to the head of an old looking robot drone.

One of the robots that attacked us from before.

Adrenaline flowing through my veins and the food forgotten, I pulled out my bo staff, banging the robot hard enough to make it tumble backwards. Mary, transforming into a snake, squeezed the rusting bot so hard that the right arm fell off.

"_Pre-sent: Beast-ress and Sha-dow,_" the robot droned, twitching. Sparks flew from the place its arm had been. "_As is un-i-den-ti-fied figh-ter. Po-ssi-ble new add-i-tion to team? Noting...noting..._"

Strange...this robot talked more then the others. Mary also seemed to notice this.

"Talkative, much?" She ducked, dodging the arm that flew above her head. The hand, its fingers claws and lazers coming from just above it, dug into the wall, leaving deep marks in it about three feet long.

As I threw a birdarang at the bot, I saw the door to the pink room become engulfed in black energy—and quickly found out it was Lou, his powers the same as Raven's.

**(**Beast boy felt like saying 'Mama's boy' but held his tongue, lest there be PAIN.**)**

"Sorry door," he commented. "This is gonna hurt."

The door whacked the robot on the head, a loud clank following it. It broke in half upon impact.

"_Noting shift in Sha-dow's strength. Noting...noting...Char-ging la-zers to re-tal-i-ate. Char-ging...char-ging..._"

"Look out!" Mary cried, turning into an Alligator and protecting Lou from the blasts.

"I can take care of myself!" Lou cried, sending a blast of black energy at the drone. That only ticked it off.

"Yeah, I can see that," she said, turning into a panther and making to tackle the bot. It only dodged her.

"_Scales pro-tect Beast-ress from blasts. Switch-ing to lev-el three blast-ers._" Something clicked within the mechanical being, and the lazers firing from its arm looked twice as powerful, singeing the walls they landed on.

Ducking a few more stray punches from the robot (these things punch?) and tripping it once or twice, I kicked its chest. It fell down.

"_Time ano-maly detec-ted a-round un-i-den-ti-fied figh-ter. Tracing...tracing..._"

"Tracing? That doesn't sound good." I kept my foot on its chest, trying to keep it from getting up. In return, I received a struggle from the machine. It aimed its lazer at me, but Mary, as a hyena, bit into it, causing sparks to fly and the thing to jam.

"_Trace com-plete; Ro-bin, of year two thou-sand and ten, mem-ber of teen ti-tans. Be-comes Night-wing, prime en-emy. Lea-der of Ti-tans. Fa-ther of—_"

**(**"WOAH!"

"_Father?_" Beast boy asked. "So...you _do _have a kid?"

"I'm guessing, or else the drone wouldn't have said that," was Robin's response.

It was quiet...

"Well...I am happy that you have a child in the future," Starfire said, a hint of detest barely noticeable in her voice.

"Yeah..."**)**

A chunk of wall engulfed in black energy, with metal poking out of it, sliced along the drone's 'neck'. The voice was immediately cut off. I stared at it for a moment.

"You..._probably_ don't wanna know what it was gonna say..." Lou said, coming up behind me. I concentrated on the face of the robot, though, its eye displaying the words, _Vocal function interrupted. Sensors damaged. Sensors damaged. Repair needed..._

"...Yeah..." I finally said. I stepped away from the drone, thinking.

Father? In the future, I'm a father? So that means I'm married...but...to who?

Mary interrupted my thoughts. "We gotta get outta here, man. We have _got _to get out!"

"Why—...Backup coming?" I asked, answering my own question.

"Most likely," Lou said, trying to brush the singes off of his cloak. "Man, this was mom's!"

I took a moment to let it all sink in: the damage done to the hallway of this home. There was a scratch on the wall, many scorch marks accompanying it, and the door was now completely missing from its hinges and on the floor, broken, the drone not making the picture any prettier.

If this could be helped...If _I_ could help...maybe they could stop living in fear of attacks like these. Maybe life could rebuild...and be free...and happy...

"I gotta pillowcase, and its _big_," Mary said, once again disrupting my thoughts. "Stick all the food and junk in here, then let's get a move on!"

Lou quickly gathered the food and water bottles and stuffed them in the pillowcase. Mary slung it over her shoulder, reminding me of Santa Claus for a moment. She grabbed the dismembered robot arm too, smiling. "For luck!" she said. "And 'cause I wanna be able to say I have a robot arm under my bed!"

"'Kay, let's go—!"

Mary paused, as did Lou. It took me a moment, but I heard it, too, faintly. _Marching..._

"Oh fudge, they're already here," she said, scared, "And it sounds like a lot of 'em."

"We can sneak out the back," Lou proposed.

"There's no time for that! We gotta get out and be far away, like, _now!_" Mary cried, shaking Lou with her free arm.

"Hey, we should remain _calm_," I said. "And if we're caught, we'll just fight."

"We can't _afford_ to get caught though, Robbie!" Mary shrieked. "We need to have been gone five and a half minutes ago!"

"Then why don't we just get moving—"

"Lou, teleport," Mary said firmly, interrupting the teen. He paled considerably.

"T-t...teleport?" he piped. He looked like he was about to faint.

"What, am I speaking babbelfish? Yeah, teleport! It'll get us out of here a-s-a-NOW!" she said. Lou looked reluctant to do so.

"B-but...I'm no _good_ at teleporting. I can't even teleport myself! Let alone three people and a sack of food..."

"Lou. I'm saying this as me." She got up in his face. "TEL. E. PORT. US."

Lou trembled, trying to stand his ground. "I-I...I can't! I just can't!"

The robot's head exploded, as if to prove his point.

"Hey, ease up on the guy," I said, "If he can't, he can't."

She looked at me like she wanted to strangle me but was holding herself back, making hand gestures and a "Ffffffffffffff..." sound.

And then the drone woke up.

It couldn't talk and was headless, though, so it only stood, sparking like mad, as it made its way to grab us. It was creepy, if you ask me...

"Teleport!" Mary shrieked. "Teleport, Lou! NOW!"

He fumbled over air, his hands lighting up as he mumbled, "Azarath metrion zinthos..."

The robot go closer. Lou continued chanting. Staying close together, Mary linked hands with both of us, probably just to make sure we'd all go together.

"Azarath metrion ZINTHOS!"

And with that, we disappeared, the robot's claw missing my face by barely an inch.

**(**"That was close." The others sighed with relief, glad Robin didn't get messed up by a damaged robot minion. Robin decided to continue once his friends looked ready for it.**)**

We ended up somewhere on the other side of town, which _probably_ wasn't what was meant to happen, but was at least something.

Lou rolled the map back up, placing it in his pocket. He still looked a bit twitchy from the landing and the whole teleporting buisness.

"So there's some more spots on the way home we can hit," he said. "It might take a while, but at least we'll have food..."

"Er...sorry for stressin' you out, Louie," Mary said after a bit, patting him on the back timidly. "I'll try not to do that in the near future..."

"..." He smiled slightly. "Thanks, I forgive you."

Mary then smiled brightly. "Awesome! So now its time to get more stuff! ONWARDS AND OUTWARDS!"

Then she turned around and ran.

...Directly into a wall.

That had been behind her the entire time.

"CRUDMUFFINS!" she shouted, sitting up.

"You want more brain damage with that?" Lou asked, standing above her, a slightly worried, a slight 'oooooh that must've hurt' look on his face.

"Nah, I think I'm good," she said, shaking her probably aching head.

After that, we walked back home and got more food, which _still_ probably didn't make a healthy meal but at least would make full stomachs.

I still thought, though, of ways I could help these guys here. There wasn't much I could do, except contribute in any way I could while here (scavenging, rescuing bystanders, packing up boxes, etc...).

But there was one other thing I _could_ do.

Take out this 'ultimate evil' that was currently living in my home.

Now if I could only get a little help with that...

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: Really. Must I say this? Really? Bah, I don't own Teen Titans. The owner person/team of Teen Titans does. I just thought this up and wrote it and published it online.**

**Chapter 11, at your service. **** :) ****(And yeah, its long) I said I'd get it up, and I did, didn't I? (even if I should be sleeping and I'm really really _really_ exhausted right about now :p.) And yes. Robin picks locks now. He did that in the episode with Mad Mod and the school and the hypno screens and junk. The lock picking thing comes out of his finger. Cool, right?**

**ACTION! All I can say is ACTION! :D (kids like robots being taken apart by animals and magical slice-and-dice, right? That doesn't count as an injury or make the rating go up, does it? [headless, one armed robot drone anybody? His name is huey...!])**

**When Lou is overly stressed, not only do robot heads explode, but people are teleported to the other side of the city. Had Mary been any more pushy, it would've been the other side of the country. (Say hi to Gotham for me, will ya?) And Lou has a fear of teleporting. I don't know why, I just thought it'd add suspense. AND IT DID. :DD  
**

**Who sticks cereal in the same cabinet as fine china? Dunno. Someone who likes their cocoa krispies/trix/frosted flakes or something. And yes. A Batman reference. 'Cause Batman is not able to be described by mere words alone. He needs the old theme song. :D If you can tell, I use my insane side when writing Mary. 'Cause its more awesome like that. :) And Robin's gone mad! Noooo—oh wait, he's helping them with making the future a better place. Like the description and plot have been for a while now. Never mind...!**

**Well, school's gonna be consuming my life now (it has been for a while, and it hasn't even _started!_) so updates may be a _tad_ slower then usual. Hopefully your patience (and mine) will last. And I'mma gonna go sleep now. fhoiaehjmvbda. (Zzzzzzz...)  
**

**So now that all that is said, please review! (the fifty mark was passed too! Kudos to you, reviewers!) Reviews are greatly appreciated and get lots of love in return! :)**

**~(a sleepy) CMK~**


	12. Unnamed for Unnamed Reasons

_**Future's Folly**_

_Chapter 12: Unnamed for Unnamed Reasons.

* * *

_

"Dude, are you _insane?"_ Beast boy demanded. He and the others looked at him, frightened. He had planned on, in the future—confusion in meaning, but whatever—taking out the 'ultimate evil' thing that made the future the dystopia it was?

"Were. Were you insane," Raven corrected.

"Dude, _were_ you insane?" the changeling corrected, somewhat annoyed.

"I believe it was just Robin's good nature that wanted to help them," Starfire said, holding her hands together on the table, one over the other. "What he does is his decision."

"Yeah, well, I'm still thinking you're insane, Rob," Beast boy said. Cyborg nodded.

"I'm thinking so too," he said. Then he thought. "Did you take out the thing livin' in the tower?"

"You want to ruin the story?" the boy wonder shot back.

"Uh...no."

"Then do you think you could wait? Or not?"

"Um...I guess."

"Okay."

He waited to see if there were anymore comments. When there weren't any, he started back up, his tale barely half way through...

"So anyways..."

* * *

We returned to the Underground Railroad 2.0 as quickly as we could. Lou took it upon himself, saying he was the one who was assigned the job first, to find Nightwing, tell him we were back, and give him the pillow case full of food (Canned food, non-perishables, etc.).

**(**"What a responsible kid."**)**

Mary held onto the robot arm, playing with it as the both of us walked down the hall. Even though I really wanted to rip it out of her hands and throw it on the ground, I let her keep it. Because she needed amusement. Which the arm was providing.

Eventually, we reached the the balcony once more. This confused me.

"It's a dead end," I said. "Unless you want to jump down there."

Mary held her head high. "That's what you think," she said. Her hand revved around the railing, like she was revving up a motorcycle.

**(**"What's that gonna do?"**)**

We then waited for something to happen.

What happened next surprised me.

The whole balcony made a clunking sound, like an elevator, then slowly began descending.

**(**"So wait, the balcony's not only a balcony, but an elevator?" Cyborg asked. Robin nodded. He didn't know he just started blueprints in Cyborg's head.

"Sweet! Elevator balconies!" Beast boy cheered. "Now I can see where I'm going when I'm going up an elevator!"

"Don't they already have those?" Raven asked. The green teen paused.

"Oh yeah. The ones with the glass windows." He blinked a few times. "I wonder when I'll be able to ride on another one of those..."

It was awkwardly quiet after that. The story quickly continued.**)**

Mary smirked, giggling at my surprise. "Told ya! Told ya!" she singsonged, pointing at my face.

Waving her hand away from my facial features, I said, "Well, how was I suppose to know the balcony also worked as an elevator?"

"Dunno. Beats me."

"Then why are you pointing at me and saying 'Told ya!' Like I was wrong and you were right?"

"'Cause you said it was a dead end."

"Because I didn't know the balcony doubled as an elevator!"

"Oh, well then. I guess you don't have mind reading powers."

We were both quiet. The only sound came from the chatting of the people below, who were slowly becoming closer.

"...Wait, what?"

"Don't you, like, always know what people are thinking?" Mary asked, looking like she genuinely believed the accusation.

"Uh...no?" was all I could think of to respond. She blinked.

"Oh."

**(**"He may as well have mind reading powers," Beast boy commented.**)**

"Stupid Zak. Stupid Zak and his lies..." Mary grumbled. I didn't know what to make of that statement. So I decided to change the subject.

"So...does this thing always go this slow?"

Mary brightened, apparently forgetting her anger with her brother. "Oh, yeah! The generator's not in such good shape as it was a few years ago, so we can only use so much before we shut it off for the night. That's why we have curfew. At least, that's what _Ty _says...'Cause that's lights out and all...except for those...glowy things Louie uses to read. And ZZ needs one too. "

"Generator?" I asked. I was surprised they had one.

"Yeah! How else do you expect us to power the lights and the elevator?" she asked.

"...Solar power?"

She blinked.

"...Y'know, I never really thought of that," Mary said after a while. "We'd never run out of juice, and we'd have all we could get too! It's BRILLIANT!"

"Uh...okay..." was my response.

"Awesome idea, Robbie!" She raised her arms and started whooping. This made me feel awkward.

So the elevator balcony finally made it to the lower floor, where we hopped over the railing and started walking. I'm guessing Changeling jumped over the railing while it was at the top to spare him the chunk of time it took to get down.

**(**"Smart of future-me," Beast boy commented.**)**

"Okay, so this is ground zero! Say hello to ground zero, Robbie," Mary said, holding her hands out. Her instructions confused me though. Say hi to a room?

"Uh...hi," I said. Mary smiled, then dragged me along.

"So, Ground Zero of the Underground Railroad 2.0," she began, apparently monologuing, "is where the magic happens! We eat, sit around, store stuff here, the works! Currently you can see we are packing, as we are moving quite soon to base 2. We've got stuff like games and toys for the kids over there," she pointed to a corner with a few scattered boxes, "important medical stuff and and stuff needed for...uh...living life," she motioned for a wall where many boxes were lined up, "and then there's a bunch of other junk I never bothered paying attention to that's stored everywhere else."

She smiled, apparently finished.

"You done?" I asked. She nodded.

"Yup! I've always wanted to do some sort of monologue speech, and I've been thinking, hey, Robbie's not from around here—or this time—so why not be like a tour guide an monologue? Bada bing bada boom, here we are!" Her smile faltered slightly. "Uh..._were._ Here we _were_."

"Right..."

"Cool. So now we shall find people!" Mary cried, dragging me elsewhere. We passed quite a few people along the way, all who said hi to us in one way or another. Mary waved back, flashing them smiles. I guess she's really friendly, even with people she barely knows. Or she actually knows them all.

**(**"That girl must have _some_ social life," Cyborg commented.**)**

Eventually, we found the others—Zak, Duncan, Ty, Z, and Cora, Suzan was somewhere else—and Mary halted. She smiled deviously, let go of my hand, and crept up behind Ty. None of them noticed, as they were deep in conversation.

"So like you said..."

"BOO!" she cried, her arms shooting up. Ty didn't react to it, though.

"Ha ha, Mary, I know it's you," he said, deadpanned. I walked up to them. Mary groaned.

"Shoot, do you have eyes on the back of your head or something?" she asked. Ty merely pointed to the tech on his head, still not looking back at her.

"Sensors," he said simply. Mary groaned even louder.

"Cheat!" Ty rolled his eyes, smirking.

"Whatever."

I decided to take a seat. There was something that resembled a cushion, so I sat on that. Z stared up at me. I directed my smile at her kindly. She smiled as well.

"So—"

"THINK FAST!" Mary randomly shouted, raising the robot arm so that it was on Ty's head. His eyes bugged out of their sockets and he stood up, screeching.

**(**"She did _what_ now?"**)**

"AAH! AAH!" He screeched, flailing his arms around. Mary cracked up, letting go of the arm, which Ty immediately flung on the floor. Mary continued to laugh.

"Not funny!" Ty cried, his voice shrill.

Mary shook her head, "Yeah, it was _hilarious!_"

The others didn't think so. Neither did I.

"That was _mean_, Mary," Cora said.

"Yeah," Duncan agreed. "What if that had been a real bot?"

"Where did you _get_ that, anyways?" Zak asked.

"She got it off of a drone," I said, "and she decided to keep it."

"Yeah! I named 'im Huey! Or...um...Huey's arm! Ain't he AWESOME?" Mary asked, oblivious to the sudden wave of worry coming from the others.

"You fought a _robot,_ as in, _robot robot?_"

"Medic! Medic! We need a medic!"

"Arm?"

"The f—"

"_Language!_"

"—lip. I was _gonna_ say flip."

"Right..."

"Hey! If you're gonna fuss," Mary cut in indignantly, "Fuss over Robbie too! He was there with me! And you may as well fuss over Louie, too, 'cause he was there with us!"

It was silent for a moment.

**(**"She makes a convincing argument," Beast boy said. "Though I can't imagine Robin getting fussed over."

"Same here," Cyborg said. "Unless Star's really worried about him..."

"Moving on," Robin cut in, clearing his throat. They quieted down, but not without their little knowing looks that said 'I-know-what-you're-trying-to-hide-and-you-ain't-hiding-it-well-enough-insert-snicker-here'.**)**

"Oh, few," Zak said, looking _very_ relieved, "You probably don't have too many bruises then."

"_What?_" Mary looked shocked.

"False alarm!" Duncan cried, embarrassed. "No medic needed. Ha ha...ha...Maybe band-aids though."

"That was a close one," Ty mused. Then Cora said something about Lou and I being able to hold our own in battle. Which _is_ true.

**(**"Well, duh it is."**)**

"Wait wait wait wait _wait_," Mary said, waving her hands, which then went to her hips. "You think I'd, like, _die_ if I fought a bot drone thing on my own, but when Robs and Lou-o are there, I'll _probably _be fine?"

"Lou and Robin have more responsibility then you do," Duncan began.

"And they're better fighters," Ty cut in. Duncan shot him a glare.

"_Responsibility_," he stressed, "and _maturity_ are things they have. You don't. So it's...somewhat normal that we'd worry if you had any broken bones or such, when if you had Robin and Lou there, then they'd keep you from doing anything brash."

"You think I'm not_ mature?_" Mary shrieked, looking deathly appalled.

"Dude. You _named _a _robot arm _HUEY. You call _that _mature?" Ty asked. Mary looked like she was thinking the statement over.

"But...I thought maturity was when you, like, hit puberty and all that, right?" Loud groans sounded from the others.

"What's _peoo-bur-tee?_" Z asked.

"You don't wanna know," Cora said.

"Y'know," Zak cut in, "I think Mary'd be able to take on a drone by herself."

This made Mary smile and her eyes glitter like stars.

**(**That statement coming out of Robin made Beast boy and Cyborg crack up.**)**

"The real problem is getting out before backup comes. Once they've got you in sight, you're pretty much a goner unless you wanna fight 'em all and...uh...you-know-who," Zak finished up lamely.

"Totally!" Cora exclaimed. "If those stupid drones hadn't been patrolling all gosh darn day and night we might've been able to find my mom and contact her earlier!"

"Then again, we didn't know if she was even still _alive _for a while," Zak pointed out. Duncan nodded, tapping his chin.

"True...true..."

Silence followed. Mary found a seat next to Ty, where she continued to try and torment him with "Huey's arm". He just grimaced at it and pushed it away. That made Mary pout.

"So...who else came with Terra?" I asked. "From her base, I mean. Ty? Zak?"

"Oh. Cora's mom, yeah." Ty tapped his chin in thought. "Oh! I think he was known as 'Aqualad' in your time, Robin."

Oh. So Aqualad was here.

"And Arsenal too," Zak added. Ty nodded.

"Oh yeah."

"Arsenal?" I asked.

"Speedy," was the immediate response.

"Oh."

**(**"Hm. So they also get name changes."

"Duh."

"Heheh...right..."**)**

"And Más y Menos," Ty said.

"So basically all of the Titans East are here now," I said. Ty and Zak nodded.

"Yup."

"Sure."

"'Kay."

"Oh, aren't Melvin, Timmy, and Teether here too?" Cora asked.

**(**No one noticed Raven's smile at the sound of those three names, because they were so induced in the all telling tale.**)**

Those names made me think of the three little super powered children I had seen before, but the thought of them coming here from some other place made me think they could've died just getting here. Then I remembered this was the future and they were probably adults now.

"Those three?" I asked.

"Yeah," Zak said. "They're here. And I believe you made Raven watch them. And I believe the exact message she received before doing that was 'Robin says you have too.'"

**(**Laughs erupted from Cyborg and Beast boy.**)**

"Yeah...I remember that. Question is, how do _you _know that?" I shot back.

"What superhero parent doesn't tell their super powered kid superhero stories?" Mary asked, interrupting her brother. Zak moaned.

"Aaaaw, I was gonna say that!" The other four laughed.

"Oh, you two," Cora said, rolling her eyes playfully.

"I know, right?" Duncan said. This caused more laughter.

The rest of the people who came with Terra were two guys and three girls, all civilian, that I didn't and probably won't ever know. We chatted for a bit more after that. When I asked Cora why she wasn't with Terra, with how clingy she had been earlier today, she said she wasn't with her because she was doing "Those things your parents don't want you to listen in to and make you feel like a child when trying to tell you to nicely go away."

**(**Beast boy and Cyborg cracked up once again.**)**

Then I asked where Suzan was. Zak said she was off "Suzaning".

"'Suzaning'?" I asked. He nodded.

"Yeah. It's what Suzans do. 'Cause she never tells us what she does. But she's doing Suzan related things...so she's Suzaning. Don't like made up words, get lost, buster." The green teen nodded curtly.

**(**"Suzaning." Chuckles and giggles from three of the four listeners were heard, all five of them remembering the time they had gone 'Robining'. Which was also a made up word. Maybe they could go Robining on Halloween. It'd make more...sense...ish...**)**

We conversed some more after that, Lou joining us shortly after, and Suzan a while after him. We talked, then meal time came around and we ate. After the meal, when we were walking back, I was towards the back with Ty. Then an idea struck me.

An idea relating to the _Take out the 'ultimate evil' in my home _idea.

**(**"Neat."

"Shh!"

"I know, I know...Geez..."**)**

"Hey, Ty," I began. He turned towards me. The others didn't notice it. So far so good.

"Yeah, Rob?" he asked.

"You have any maps of the city?"

**(**"Maps of the city. Seriously?" Beast boy asked.

"The City must've changed in the future. I needed an up-to-date one," Robin replied.

"Oh."**)**

"Of the city? Yeah, we have tons...why?" Ty asked, stopping. I stopped a few steps ahead of him.

"Just wanted to...see if any houses hadn't been checked for resources." Yeah. That was convincing.

**(**"Good save."**)**

Ty gave me a look that said 'O...kay...I'll believe you this time...' and said out loud, "I...think there're a few spare ones that haven't been packed up yet."

"Great. Think you can get it for me?" I asked. He nodded.

"Yeah, sure. Just don't think about going out today. It's already too late. Robots'll be on double duty for the rest of the day," he advised.

"Noted." I nodded. Ty acknowledged the gesture, then went off to get the map. I sped up and caught up with the others. Mary was the first to see Ty wasn't with me.

"Hey, where's Ty-lee?" she asked. This gained everyone's attention.

"Yeah, where is he? He was right behind us!" Zak said.

"Ty?" Z squeaked.

"Guys, don't worry, he just went to grab me something," I said. They seemed to buy that.

"Oh. Okay then," Mary chirped, skipping forward. The others murmured their agreements and walked ahead. Except Lou. He tagged behind, waiting for me to go. So I started walking.

"You planning something?" he whispered to me. I blinked.

"Uh...no?"

"Liar." I grew confused. He rolled his eyes. "Empathy. I can tell if you're lying."

**(**"Guess he really is his mother's son."**)**

"...Fine, I'm planning something. I just don't want to drag the rest of you guys into this," I said. Lou sighed, looking around, at his now seemingly worry-free friends, then finally back at me.

"You may not have a choice."

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: Yo. I don't own Teen Titans. Wish I did. Made the kids. So...I kinda own them. Kthnx.  
**

**Hi!**

**... ... ...**

**Okay, so I'll spare you guys the overly long excuse for why I've been so busy lately and unable to write, (hint: starts with SCH and ends with OOL) and just say life is really cutting into my personal time right now.**

**So yes, chapter 12. (coughcoughfinallycoughcough) Hope you enjoy, this took me FOREVER to write. Stupid...school related stuff that isn't fun...**

**Now I'm just amusing myself with titles :D And you may have noticed I'm getting lazy with the Titans' interruptions/remarks. I can't really think of anything good for them to interrupt with/too, but they're _them_, they're bound to interrupt at some point, whether it be a stray, not thought out comment or a freaked out omigawdsaywut thing.**

**And just to make it clear, for those wondering why Robin didn't know it was an elevator-balcony ahead of time/before, there's a set of stairs. Somewhere. Possibly. Mary took them in the wrong direction of them. So that's why Rob said it was a "dead end."**

**Not much else to say. But I thought I'd be ending day 2 with this chapter, but turns out NO I MADE IT INTO A SORT OF TWO PARTS THING. That, and I wish elevator-balconies were real. I think they'd be something for indoor use only, but they'd be AWESOME. :D**

**And that sort of almost ends this author's note. Please review, reviews make me try to write faster and are really appreciated. And they give your opinions on my writing. **

**_-So, in other words, reviews = much love and me trying to write faster and you telling me whatcha think._ So please, do I have to ask again? Review!**

**(Oh I should so be doing homework...DX)**

**CMK**


	13. Secrets and Trust Issues and Maps Oh My!

_**Future's Folly**_

_Chapter 13: Secrets and Trust Issues and Maps, Oh My!

* * *

_

"Duuuuude this is getting suspenseful!" Beast boy commented, happy and excited. He put his hands to his face, fingers pointing outwards, and in a deep voice repeated what Lou had said. "'You may not have a choice!'" He lowered his arms. "Sounds like something out of a movie!"

"Kinda does, doesn't it?" Cyborg mused.

There were a few nods in agreement. Beast boy then spoke up again.

"It's like I'm getting to know all the future kids without actually knowing them. Like it's a story someone's reading," he said, then paused. "Wouldn't it be weird if this were actually a story someone was reading?"

"That'd be impossible, Beast boy," Raven said, sighing.

"Not to mention weird," Robin added.

"Hmmmmm..."

It was quiet for a bit. The resident Tameranean decided to voice a comment.

"I would like to say that I enjoy knowing more about my future son," Starfire said, "And I wish I could change the few minutes I actually spent with him from fighting to bonding."

"Don't we all..." Robin murmured, so barely anyone could hear him. _Some more then others..._

He seemed to be catching on to something...

* * *

"_You may not have a choice."_

"Huh?" I asked after a moment. "Why?"

"Because," Lou began. "Not only do we get very bored around here, but we never let one person do something potentially dangerous alone unless—"

"YO ROBBIE!" Mary shouted, intruding in on our conversation. We both turned to her and the others. She looked very excited.

"Yes?" I asked.

"Wanna have a glass-looking plastic cup stacking contest?" she asked. "Zaky's too chicken I'll beat his score!"

"I'm not _chicken!_" Zak cried. "I just...don't feel in the mood for it!"

"'Glass-looking plastic cups'?" I inquired, confused by the term.

"It's all in the name," Duncan began, "They're plastic cups that look like glass ones."

"Oh."

**(**"Interesting namesake."**)**

"So who's up for a round o' glass-looking plastic cup stackin'?" Mary asked. "Besides Zaky. He's a li'l cowardwy wion," she cooed, making a sort of kissy face at Zak. He started fuming.

"Oh yeah? Well, A-a-at least I don't have a robot arm!" he declared. Mary hugged the offending robot appendage to herself.

"Egad, my good brother, egad! This here is a harmless little hunk of metal!" she cried. Zak glared. She growled at him. He stuck his tongue out at her. She slapped him with the metal arm.

And so they fought over stupid things for a bit.

**(**"Kinda expected that," Raven muttered, "Being Beast boy's kids and all..."

This caused the mentioned green teen to fume. Robin coughed.**)**

Then Ty came back. "Hey, Rob," he said, map in hand, "I got you your map. It's a tad outdated, though...hasn't been marked up for a while. Hope that's alright with you."

"That's okay," I said. I took the map from him. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," Ty said, giving me a quick smile. Then he walked off to join the others. Lou gave me a sideways glance, but remained quiet.

"You guys are fighting about _what?_" was what I could hear of Ty over Mary and Zak's squabbling.

"He is a big fat lying chicken!" Mary shouted.

"She's a dopey little name caller!" Zak shouted back.

"_You lie!_ Guess what? Robin has no sort of mind reading powers whatsoever, Zak!" Mary cried, actually surprising me with how intellectual she sounded at that moment.

**(**About half the population present was also surprised.**)**

Zak paled. "What? NIGHTWING LIED TO MEEEEH!" He cried, dramatically falling to his knees as he shook his arms to the heavens.

**(**Beast boy and Cyborg laughed at this.**)**

"I think he was, oh, I dunno, _joking_," Suzan said, sounding a tad annoyed.

"Joking? What is this joking you speak of?" Zak asked, looking like he just spaced out. Suzan facepalmed. "Nah, just kiddin', Suzie. I know what joking is. Just didn't expect Nightwing to be the joking type..."

**(**"Neither did I," Beast boy mumbled, surprised.**)**

"Don't call me Suzie," she responded immediately, glaring him down.

"Aw, but it sounds so cute..." Zak began, pouting slightly.

Suzan merely growled at him. He instantly shut up.

**(**"Sounds like someone I know..." Raven muttered, glancing sideways at Beast boy. He chuckled nervously.**)**

"_Anyways_," Ty cut in, "You guys have _got_ to stop fighting over stupid stuff..."

"Mary's the fight-starter!" Zak cried.

"Instigator, you mean," Lou corrected. Everyone stared at him for a moment. Mary's face was blank.

"Big words hurt my brain," she said. Lou sighed.

**(**"Of course..." Raven murmured.**)**

"Of course..." Lou grumbled.

**(**Beast boy stared at Raven like she possibly just gained mind reading powers. She rolled her eyes at this.**)**

"Are you trying to say something?" she asked, already riled up from before.

"Insinuate, you mean?" Lou asked.

"STOP HURTING MY BRAIN!" Mary shrieked, holding her hands to her ears. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, walking forward. She bumped into the wall, crying out as she did. "AH—CRUDMUFFINS!"

Awkward laughs followed. Then it was deathly silent.

"I'm so gonna beat you're score Zaky!" Mary randomly shouted, forgetting her anger. The girl could bounce back...

"Nu-uh!" Zak cried, indignantly.

"Ya-huh!" Mary shot back.

"Not if I beat it first!" Duncan cut in, excited. "I'm gonna do _great_ this time!"

"Yeah right, Red!" Mary said. "I'm gonna win!"

"Riiiiiiiight...so says Miss Clumsy," Zak said, snickering as he did. Mary pouted.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah—"

"You _do_ know Duncan's already half way to the kitchen boxes to get the cups, right?" Ty cut in, pointing to the lone red haired figure running down the hall. This made the siblings stare in silent, noticeable fright.

"HEY! THAT'S TOTALLY UNFAIR!" Mary shouted a second later, running after him.

Zak looked like he was trying to mull over something in his head, but shouted, "Yeah! What she said!" and ran after her.

Cora shrugged. "As usual..." she muttered, slowly walking behind the wild three. Ty and Z followed her, both of them sounding excited as they conversed with one another. Z hung on Ty's leg, which made it slightly difficult for him to walk. It looked like they were both having fun, though.

**(**"She sounds like she'll be one heck of a daughter..."**)**

This left me with Lou and Suzan. Suzan glanced down at my hand, which still held the map. She raised a brow at it.

"You needed Ty to get you a _map?_" she asked bluntly.

"Yes," I said, equally blunt.

"Really?" she asked.

"Yeah, really," I countered.

"Seriously?" she asked, "It's not like you can really do anything with that..."

"Or go out today at all," Lou pitched in. "The bots'll be on double duty for the rest of the day, anyways..."

"True," Suzan agreed.

"I know that," I said. "Ty told me."

"Oh. Good," Suzan replied, pursing her lips. "Right..."

The silence was really awkward.

"...Oh gosh you're planning something, aren't you?" Suzan asked, shock written all over her face.

Was I that obvious?

**(**"Weeeeeeeeellll..." Cyborg began, biting his tongue as he thought. Robin held his index finger out at him, scowling.

"Don't answer that," he said. Cyborg smiled awkwardly, holding his hands up in defense. Robin rolled his eyes at the response.**)**

"Uh," I stated, shivering slightly from surprise, "Er...no?"

She glared. "Liar," she said. I felt and odd sense of deja vu.

"Okay, I know Lou's an empath, but how can _you _tell I'm lying?" I asked. Lou perked at his name being called, but remained silent. Suzan sighed.

"Robin, I've been living around Nightwing for who knows how long. I _know_ what you're like when you're planning something," she said.

"...She does," Lou piped. "She knows, I mean," he corrected. "Just so...y'know..."

Hm...

"..." I was silent.

"You may as well spill the beans now," Suzan said. "'Cause we're bound to find out eventually, anyways."

"I don't want to get you guys involved," I said. Suzan stiffened.

"Really now?" she asked. "I—_we_ can take care of ourselves, you know, or else we'd be dead right about now."

Lou chuckled nervously. "hahahahahaha...yeah...dead..."

"I know that," I said. "I just don't want you guys to get involved with what I'm planning."

"So you _are_ planning something!" Suzan said.

"...Yes. I thought we already went over this," I said, a tad confused. She blinked, then shook her head.

"Don't start playing mind tricks with me," she said. I raised a brow. "Just...tell me what you're planning already! I—_we_ can help!"

"I already said I _don't_ want you guys involved!" I pressed. "You could get hurt!"

"Really? Like you couldn't?" she shot back. I silenced.

"...So?" I shot back.

**(**"That was lame."

"I know. Don't rub it in my face."

"Just saying..."**)**

"You don't know how that could effect the future!" Suzan said. "People could be erased! Lives could be changed! This whole operation could have never even started!"

"I thought you said I'd go back!" I said, my voice raising.

"Not if you_ die!_" Suzan shouted, her voice raising as well. I groaned.

"...Okay, this is going to sound really rude, but please, leave me alone! I can do this by myself!" I said. Suzan inhaled sharply. It was quiet.

**(**"Oooooooh...bad move," Cyborg said softly.**)**

"...Fine. I guess I'm just getting in your way, _Robin_," she said, sounding like she was holding back sadness. I instantly regretted saying that. "I'll just leave you _alone_." She brushed passed me, going in the direction of the others. She didn't even look back.

"That...wasn't very good," Lou said, making me jump. I actually forgot he was there for a second.

"How so?" I asked. That whole fight still had me riled up. I was just trying to protect them...

"Well, not only does Suzan have even _more_ trust issues now, she's probably gonna go punch a wall or something. Something as in Zak," Lou said, grimacing slightly.

"Wait—_Trust issues?_" I was surprised, slightly, by that and Suzan's name being in the same sentence. "She has _trust issues?_"

"Er...yeah. Ever since...Kyris...y'know...Nightwing's been keen on keeping us on a need-to-know basis. And I'm guessing that kinda made her feel untrustworthy...so she's probably beating herself up about not being good enough for Nightwing...or...you, as of now," Lou said, timidly raking a hand through his hair.

I remembered what she had said in the training room this morning: "_Hey, you're Robin, leader of the teen titans Robin, right?"_ It was like she was trying to make sure she could trust to me or not...and I probably just ruined whatever sort of trust we had between us.

"Oh gosh...I...I really...I didn't know," I said, not really knowing _what_ to say. Lou tried to smile, placing his hand on my shoulder.

"Don't worry, Robin," he said. "It's not like you could've known, anyways. And I bet this'll all blow over quickly. Its not like she can stay mad forever, anyways. At least...I _think_ she can't...but anyways. You're leaving in two days. You two are bound to make up at some point."

I tried to smile. "You're making it sound like we're some old married couple or something."

**(**Starfire knew he was joking, but still felt a hint of detest rise inside of her.**)**

Lou, meanwhile, gagged. "Ew, no! Why would you two even be married anyways?"

"Beats me," I said, shrugging. Try to stay positive... "C'mon. The others are probably done with their 'glass-looking plastic cup stacking contest' right now anyways."

"I think not," Lou said. "You have _no _idea how long those can go for. They use almost all the cups each round! And that's almost a hundred!"

"Wow, seriously?"

"Yeah. Seriously. They fight for them too..."

That done, we joined up with the others, who were about a quarter of the way through their cup stacking. Suzan was nowhere to be seen. The others said they hadn't seen her after rushing in there to start the game. This disappointed me. In the end, Mary tipped over Duncan's tower, to which he cried foul, and Zak declared that made him the winner. Mary then pushed his tower over. This caused a big fight.

Eventually, with Ty trying to stop said fight unsuccessfully, Cora said it was a three way tie, which caused grumbling among the three. Food was served, and the day went on. Night came drearily, and I began to plan in the silence it brought.

Looking over the map, I saw that not much had really changed. Except for a few inconveniences on way to the tower. And the fact that I'd need a boat of some sort, or I'd have to swim all the way there...Not a really good choice. Boat it is.

"Hey," someone whispered. I looked up to see Lou. He gazed down at me sadly.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"Be careful, will ya? We want you to come back in one piece," he said, sadly. I knew who he meant by "we", but for some reason this only made me sad.

"...Okay," I said, quickly looking down at the map. I heard Lou rustled back under the covers a while later. The light he was using to read gave me enough light to look at the map, probably damaging my eyes as I did so.

I tried devising a route to get to the tower, and a plan of action to get in and find that 'ultimate evil'. I was going to do this as quickly and stealthily as possible. Before long I couldn't even tell what time it was anymore. I looked at the disk for good measure, which had the time left here somewhere around 58:31:02. I told myself to go to sleep, which was hard enough as it was.

Man. Tomorrow was going to be a pain...

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: Still don't own Teen Titans. This is about the...seventy-fifth time I've admitted this to myself. Yay.**

**And wala! An update! Chapter 13's here (unlucky number causes belated update? Hm...might make a good headline...). So yeah, please excuse the late update, not only did this go through an entire rewrite, twice, but I also wrote something else out of boredom. Check my profile if your interested in snow and BBRae in an AU type thing. (Not sure I like how Robin came out in this chapter. But eh, that's life. And my writing skills. Derp. :P)  
**

**But, thus ends day 2. Finally. Day 3'll be planning with interesting people...kukuku~ :3 Any guesses?**

**Verbal fight. Verbal fight not good. 'Specially between Suzan and Robin. Lotsa drama. Now you know why its "Secrets and Trust Issues and Maps, Oh My!" (Poor them, I didn't even realize I was writing the fight when I was writing it until half way through said fight...Man, am I slow...) All I can say is DRAMA. I don't even know how that's gonna work out as of now, and I'M THE WRITER. D:  
**

**ALSO...MORE ART! YEAH! :D (FINALLY) (WAS FUN TO DRAW)**

http:/img651(dot)imageshack(dot)us/img651/8120/ttngffcolorextravaganza(dot)png** Basically it's a few moments from the story and some doodlies of the kiddies. IN COLOR. (Though its sorta hard to see. Stupid scanner has failed meh D:) Some other pictures/sketchdumps have been posted on my profile if you wanna look at them, too. :)**

**So yeah. If AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLL of you guys reading this would review, it'd make me so very very happy. Though you're probably not even reading this A/N cuzza the length. So I'll just shorted it out for you:**

_**PLZ REVIEW OUT OF KINDESS OF UR HEART. PLZ.**_

**CMK :)**


	14. Idk, my bff Jill?

_**Future's Folly**_

_Chapter 14: Idk, my bff Jill?

* * *

_

"Man. This is getting angsty," Beast boy said. No one questioned this. "Think you can skip over the angsty stuff?"

"...We all had cake until I went back. The end," Robin said, sarcastically. Beast boy blinked.

"Really?"

"No."

"Oh."

"Good one though, Rob. Almost made me laugh," Cyborg said, smiling.

"Good for me, then," the boy wonder said. "I'm a comedian."

A few more thoughts that the author was to lazy to write were passed around between the five. Soon, though, Robin felt hungry, so he grabbed something from the fridge to munch on as he finished telling his brilliant story.

'Cause its brilliant, is it not?

Uh...right. Other then that, no one questioned his hunger, actually encouraged him to eat, then demanded he continued where he left off a second later.

Robin, chewing on the tidbit of food he had in his mouth, sighed.

These guys have absolutely no patience.

* * *

The next morning was a little better than the last. At least there wasn't Zak snoring...And he wasn't in his bed. Like he had just disappeared. Which at the moment made me think _Where's Zak?_

**(**"Where could he be so early in the mornin'?"**)**

I brushed it off. The others were still sleeping. Duncan had curled up in his sleep. Ty was murmuring something that strangely sounded like "No waffles for me, thanks..." Lou had fallen asleep with his book on his head.

**(**Beast boy tried to hold in his snort.**)**

Other then Zak being gone, everything seemed normal. Or...as normal as it could be. The disk read somewhere around 46:03:44 or so. I can't really recall if it was forty six or forty five, though...

I decided to go get some form of food, because for some reason I was really _really_ hungry. Maybe it was not eating properly for the past few days.

I walked out of the room. The next thing I knew I bumped into a girl.

**(**"Smooth."**)**

"Gah!"

"Agh!"

The girl was blonde. She had a weird looking hat with cat ears stitched on to it that had fallen to the ground when she bumped into me. She rubbed her head as she groaned.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" I said, reaching for the hat. "Uh...here's your...hat?"

"My hat?" She instantly looked at my hands, then yanked the hat away and put it back on her head. "Uh...thanks, guy I don't know. Now never touch my hat again, thanks."

"Uh...you're welcome?" She brushed past me without saying a word. Later I found out her name was AJ.

**(**"Nice name."**)**

I shook the whole thing off and walked down to the main room, using the stairs. I eyed the balcony above me, slightly feeling like it would start moving at any second. It didn't.

So instead I went to where food was going to be served—and found people already eating. I saw familiar faces all around: the rest of the Titans, Titans East, some honorary Titans I missed earlier...

**(**"It is good to know our friends have survived!" Starfire said happily.**)**

And then there were the rest of them. Most of which I didn't know.

I grabbed a plate and walked over to where the food was being served. There wasn't a ton left, but enough to probably feed the people here. I started wondering how much I should take...I didn't want to take too much. That wouldn't be good...

A hand reached over and placed some food on my plate. I turned around and saw Nightwing...

"Hello. I think it's time we have a little chat, Robin," he said.

"Uh...okay," I said.

**(**"Ooooooh, Robin's in _trou-ble!_"**)**

I followed him. We sat down at a simple table. I somehow felt intimidated as he stared at me, smiling slightly.

"Robin," he began. "There are a few things you may want to know, now that you've only got two days left here."

I contemplated this. "Like what?"

"Like the fact that I now remember the past two days here in your shoes."

If that was true...then that meant...

Oh snap.

**(**"Dude, you're _sooo_ busted."**)**

"So...I guess you know about...the fight...?" I began, smiling awkwardly. Nightwing didn't seem amused.

"That, and some other things I don't feel like mentioning..."

I could tell what he meant. Probably didn't feel like mentioning my incomplete plan then.

"Uh..." I gulped. "Do you know if...Suzan and I get back on good terms?"

Nightwing sighed. "That's the problem...I don't know yet."

I blinked. "Say what?"

"To make this easy...I only remember yesterday and the day before that from your point of view because you've already lived them out. You haven't lived out these next two days yet...so I don't know what's going to happen. Get it?" Nightwing asked. I nodded.

"So...you don't know how this will all end up..." I stated. He shook his head distraughtly.

"Exactly, and I don't want you getting killed going through with that plan of yours," he said. "Because if you die, I die, and then history gets jacked up and lots of stuff goes screwy and people other then us die. Get it?"

"Uh...I guess..."

"Good. So no plan for you," Nightwing finished off, munching on some food. I did a double take.

"Wait, what? I need to go through with the plan!" I said. Nightwing swallowed, then glowered at me. I flinched. Did I really glare that harshly...?

**(**"Now you know how we feel..."**)**

"No buts," he said. "What I say is final. You're not going. It's not even thoroughly thought out yet!"

"But..."

"No. Buts. Or I'll have to make someone watch you," he said. I twitched.

"I'm not a kid," I said. "I can take care of myself."

"I think I'd know that better then anyone," Nightwing said. "But I don't want you risking the safety of all these people for one little scheme."

"This 'scheme' could help these people be safer!" I argued.

"No. That's final."

"Why? Why do you have to be so stubborn?" I demanded.

"Why do _you_ have to be so stubborn?" Nightwing retorted. That confused me, but only for a moment.

"Don't change the subject!" I said.

"I'm not. I'm just stating a fact," he replied.

I groaned. Fighting with myself was getting me nowhere, quick...

**(**"You said it, man."**)**

"Remind me to ask Zak where he learned to make such nice origami roses, by the way..." Nightwing said offhandedly. "They actually looked quite nice..."

I didn't take much thought on the origami rose. Instead, I asked, "Speaking of which, where is Zak?"

"Somewhere around here...possibly in the playroom," Nightwing mused. "Or looking for Suzan, to try and cheer her up..."

I cringed. Stupid fight...

Nightwing put on a soft smile, then sighed. "I bet you're bored talking with me, now. You can go."

I sat there for a moment, contemplating things. This could be the last chance I had to ask him questions. About anything. Like...

"...Are you a father?" I asked. Nightwing was silent.

"...Can't ruin all of life's surprises, now, can we, Robbie?" he asked cheekily. "I know about 'Huey' too. Not about to spill that info..."

Darn.

"Eh. I think it'd be best if you don't question me anymore, you're just gonna get a lot of 'I can't answer that's," he said. "Now run along, scamper away. Do whatever you do at that age you're at, little guy."

I humphed, but stood up anyways. Then I walked off. Man, I'm sort of wacky in the future. And bossy. _Really _bossy.

**(**"Who says you aren't bossy now...?"

...

"I was...joking?"

"Uh-huh."

"Really. I was."

"Riiiiight."**)**

I found some other Titans to talk to after that. It was actually quite interesting to listen in on their conversations. After I finished eating, I dropped my plate off in the dish pile, and started walking around the place. Some people began to move towards the boxes and packed some more things in them.

And so I walked around the place for a while. Thinking. Contemplating. If I think about the plan, Nightwing will know tomorrow. If I don't, nothing will change about the future.

And that's bad.

The only way for the plan to be a success would be to go through with it on my final day here—tomorrow—which would mean Nightwing wouldn't know and he wouldn't try and stop me.

Yeah. That works. That sounds good.

Now to stop thinking about the plan...

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: So ya. Me no ownee Titans, they belong to DC/CN or whatever...I made the kiddies up...Cassie Glitter gave me AJ...Blah blah blah...**

**Yes! Hello! Chapter 14 has now graced your presence! Leave a message after the tone/blue lettering! _Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep..._**

**Haha...yeah...uh, finally? *booed off stage. ...if there even _is_ a stage***

**Alright, don't kill me, been busy, blah blah blah...uh...long time no see?**

**So yeah. Don't kill me. I very much enjoy living and hopefully you guys do enjoy reading this and me living. Hopefully. AND EGAD THE KIDDIES AREN'T IN HERE! EGAD! ...I'd say this chapter's more of a development chapter. I think some comedy and development will be in the next chapter...as well as the kiddies...and writing... Short Chapter is Short. But at least it's here. I intended it to be longer, but the huuuge wait is already so huuuge...so it's cut short here. LIKE A CLIFFHANGER SORTA MWAHAHAHA. Also, title has no relation to chapter text. Just felt like putting it there. LOL :D  
**

**AJ'll come in handy later. Just you wait.**

**(Do you think Robin's in character here? I have this inkling that there's something off about him...hm...)  
**

**In other news, my birthday's on the ninth! Not that a lot of you knew that. :P I also have a craving for gingerbread men...**

**Ahem. So...Yes. Review?**


	15. And Random Stuff Happens

_**Future's Folly**_

_Chapter 15: And Random Stuff Happens_

* * *

Needless to say it was very hard _not_ to think of the plan. With not really much else to do but think while the others slept, It couldn't be helped that my thoughts would revert back to what I was trying to keep myself from not thinking of.

But then I rounded a corner and bumped into Zak. At least I knew where he was now.

"OOF!"

"AK!"

Zak rubbed his head. "The heck, man!"

"Sorry," I said.

"You should watch where you're going!" the changeling pressed.

"You and me both," I said.

Zak sighed. "Sorry...I should've been paying attention to where I was going. Shouldn't have rounded the corner so sharply."

"I should have too," I said. "I was too deep in thought, though..."

"What were you thinking of?"

"..."

I didn't respond.

"...O...kay then," Zak said, sounding a tad confused. "I...guess I'll just be trying to find Suzan. She ran off again when I was trying to talk to her..."

I cringed.

Stupid fight.

"How is she?" I asked. Zak paused.

"She's...er...acting like her stubborn self, is the way to word it, I guess," he said, his hands digging into his pockets. "She seems upset, but won't talk about it. Like I said, she ran away when I tried to talk to her."

"Oh. I see." As if I didn't feel bad enough.

"Do you know why she's so upset?" Zak asked. Oh gosh...

"Weeeeeellll..."

"You do, don't you?"

"Okay, maaaybe I do..."

Zak stared at me. "Tell. Me. Why. _Now_."

"She and I had a fight," I said simply. The changeling blinked.

"About what?" he asked.

"Uh...can't tell," I said. Zak was silent.

"...Dude, you fail," he said simply, then walked off, leaving me confused.

"...What's that suppose to mean?" I shouted after him. He didn't hear me, though.

So instead, I kept walking. This time, though, I made it to the play room, where I found Z doodling while Cora played with a few children.

"Now, where did I put that stuffed dog..."

"Behind the trunk, Cora!"

"Oh! Thanks, Rita!"

"You're welcome, Cora!"

I sat down, since there was nothing better to do, and stared at the wall boredly.

Man, being able to do nothing stunk. _Badly_.

**(**"For you, maybe..."**)**

Z looked up from her paper. "Hiya!" she said. "How are you, Uncle Robin?"

"Good," I responded. She stared at me.

"...You don't seem so good," she said. I shrugged it off.

"What're you drawing?" I asked, changing the subject. She brightened, forgetting her previous statement, and held up her piece of paper.

"Look! I finally got the red sky just the right color of red, and I drew me, Ty, you, and a bunch of other people!" she said, holding up a picture. It was dark red in the background, with some nicely drawn half-stick people on brown grass.

"It looks nice," I said. Z smiled.

"Really?" she asked.

"Yeah."

She stared at her craftsmanship happily, but the smile quickly left her face. She gazed at me expectantly.

"What if the sky was yellow?" she asked. The question startled me.

"Uh...Actually, it is. When the sun rises. And sets," I said. Z's eyes bugged.

"No way, really?" she asked.

"Yeah, don't you—" _She grew up during all of this_. Oh...

I chose my next words carefully.

"...It's actually quite nice. I miss it," I said. Z contemplated this.

"Hmm. I wish I could see the sky turn yellow," she said. I nodded. A minute passed, and she jumped up, grabbed another paper, and started coloring it entirely yellow.

I couldn't help but smile slightly.

**(**Cyborg was babbling something about "Artists and their artistness!"**)**

"Nice save," Cora said, coming up behind me.

"Thanks," I replied. Cora sat down next to me, then sighed peacefully. "Not with your...mom?"

"She's doing buisness-y-stuff with Nightwing."

"Ah. I see."

It was quiet, except for the scribbles of Z's crayons and the few other kids playing with their toys.

It wasn't quiet for long, though, as Mary barged into the room. She looked overjoyed.

"ROBBIEROBBIEROBBIE!"

"...Yes?"

She hopped over to where I was sitting, her arms flailing around madly as she did.

"I TOTALLY ALMOST FORGOT THAT I COULD DO THIS BUT LOOK—" She made some noises, and wings popped out from her back. The heck? "—HALF TRANSFORMATIONS!"

She smiled. I was at a loss for words.

"...You almost forgot you could do that."

"Yahuh."

"...And you've had a tail the past two days and today, too."

She gasped. "I have a tail?"

I gave her a long, hard look.

Was she for real?

She started laughing. "Nah, I'm just kiddin', I know I gots a tail. The only thing, though, is that it kinda got stuck like that and I kinda forgot how to make it disappear and reappear until just a few seconds ago when I woke up!"

Cora joined in on the conversation. "You just woke up and came here?"

Mary nodded, her wings disappearing. "Yup!"

"Without eating breakfast?" she continued.

Mary's stomach growl answered for her. She smiled nervously.

"Hehe...Oops?"

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, numbskull," Cora said, shaking her head playfully. Mary pouted.

"I know! But this was the biggest thing of the day! So far!" she replied.

"Go eat breakfast, Mary," the blonde said. Mary slumped over and nodded sullenly.

"Yes ma'am..."

And with that she left.

Cora chuckled softly, and went back to watching the younger children play.

Then Mary barged back into the room, a scowl on her face.

"Waaaaait a minute..."

"Yeeees?" Cora asked, laying her head back to view her.

"You're younger than me! You can just order me around! That's Louie's job!"

Cora rolled her eyes. "Breakfast, Mary."

"Yes ma'am..."

"I think I'll go with her," I said. If anything, she would keep me distracted.

"Alright then," Cora said. "Have a good time."

I nodded, and followed an excited Mary out.

"Hey Robbie, guess what today is?" she asked as we walked.

"What?" I asked. Mary scowled.

"No, guess, Robbie!"

"Uh...I really can't guess, Mary."

She smiled, ignoring my comment. "Today's lazy day!"

What...? "'Lazy day'?"

"Yeah! The day of the week every other Sunday the Twenty Seventh when Louie agrees to do nothing with me for a whole day!" she exclaimed happily.

Okay...Confusing.

"Uh, alright."

"You wanna be lazy with me and Louie?" she asked.

"Mm..." If I had anything better to do, it would have been paperwork or researching villains. But since those two things weren't here, and there weren't really any villains I knew of I could be researching at the moment, that was out of the question. Instead, I just shrugged. Mary took that as a yes.

"Cooool! We can get so much laziness in today that we won't need to be lazy until next lazy day the next every other Sunday the Twenty Seventh!" she said ecstatically.

She did realize I was leaving sometime tomorrow, right?

"FOOD!" she screamed as we reached where breakfast was being served, and consequentially almost gone and all packed up. She sped away to try and get some leftovers before everything was packed up.

**(**"And she said it was Lazy Day!"**)**

I decided to sit down and wait for her. To keep my thoughts off what I was trying to not think about, I unhooked the disk from my belt and glanced at the time.

It was at 44:54:22 and slowly ticking down. 21, 20, 19, 18...

Mary slammed her plate down with a smile.

"Good old food!" she said happily. "How I missed thee! I'm glad I didn't eat you all last night!"

Before I could comment on anything, she started gobbling down her food. So I glanced around. Nightwing was nowhere to be found. I let out a breath I didn't even realize I was holding, and rested my chin on my hand.

There has to be _something _to do...

Mary was halfway done with her meal when she suddenly stopped, noticed something, and smiled. I turned around to see what she was looking at, and saw the girl from earlier.

"AJ! AAAAEEEJAAAAAAAAY!" she called, waving her arm around happily. The blonde turned to see who was calling, saw it was Mary, and came over.

"Yeah, Mary?" she asked.

"This is AJ," Mary told me, ignoring her. "She's, like, super awesome and can get rid of Bots like it's no one's buisness! She's one of my bestest friends besides...uh...my other bestest friends! I don't see why we don't take her with us more often..."

"It might be because I have a job as junior-inspector-chief of box packing right now," AJ said, crossing her arms. "Otherwise, I'd be sitting and doing what _I _wanted to do right now. Like getting blue streaks in my hair, if Mom let me."

"She also has a hat!" Mary said, ignoring her once more. She reached up to grab the odd looking hat, successfully taking it. AJ did not look pleased.

"Gimme back my hat," she hissed. Mary laughed.

"What if I d—" Mary squealed as AJ got up in her face. Did her eyes just flash different colors?

"Give. It. Back."

Mary flung it at her, as if her reflexes were automatic. AJ picked it up and carefully placed it back on her head, ignorant of the trembling Mary next to her.

"Y-you sca-scaryyyy..."

"That's what you get for takin' my hat," she said simply. I stared at her.

"Uuuh..."

A flash of recognition flashed in her eyes.

"Hey, I remember you," she said. "You're the kid who bumped into me and picked up my hat."

I twitched. Kid?

She paused. "No one touches my hat."

"So I see..." I said.

"Yeah," she said. "So...I guess I'll see ya later, uh..."

"Robin," I said. She nodded.

"Yeah, later," she said, walking away. Since Mary was still trembling and started muttering to herself, I watched as AJ walked away. She silently took a box from some guy. It looked like she was struggling with it, and he was trying to take it back from her, but she kept shaking her head and continued to walk forward slowly.

She looked like a stubborn one.

"Hey."

I turned around to see Lou. He sat down, making himself comfortable, next to Mary.

"Hey," I said back.

"It's the day of the week every other Sunday the Twenty Seventh that I spend with Mary doing nothing," he said. Then he sighed. "I might as well get a head start."

Still confused here...

He glanced over at Mary. Then he looked back at me.

"AJ here?" he asked.

"Blonde, yea tall, odd hat with cat ears on it?"

"The one and only."

"Then yeah, she was here," I said. "What'd she do to traumatize Mary so much?"

"Just the usual," Lou replied. "Momentarily took her thoughts away, invaded her personal space, made her give it back like a puppet. Like I said, the usual."

Wait. What?

"'Took away her thoughts'?" I asked. Lou nodded.

"Yup," he said. "AJ's got this power she uses. I'm not really sure how it works, but she can control people like puppets, I guess would be the way to say it."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Interesting."

**(**"Interesting indeed," Cyborg muttered. "I wonder how she got powers like that."

"You and me both," Beast boy said. "Those powers'd be awesome!"**)**

Lou slowly coaxed Mary out of her trauma, and she went on to devour the rest of her food. After that, since it was 'lazy day', we sat around talking.

"Wanna hear a joke?" Mary asked. "I heard it from Uncle Cy."

"Shoot. His jokes are good," Lou said.

"Alright then, there was once this redheaded girl named Stacy, and she was a really big bully in the fourth grade. Somehow, though, there was this guy who liked her, and one day she told him to say 'Purple passion!' during class. So he stood up when the teacher was writing on the board and shouted 'PURPLE PASSION!'" she shouted, lazily pumping her fist. "And the teacher literally _stops_ writing, turns and looks at him, and says '_WHAT_ did you say young man?' and he said 'Purple passion?' and the teacher goes _CRAZY_ and literally _drags_ him to the principals office and _literally_ throws him in there."

"What does purple passion mean?" Lou cut in. Mary shushed him.

"I'm getting to that," she said. "So he's in the principals office, right? And the principal asks him why he's there. The kid goes 'Well...the redheaded Stacy told me to say something in class, and the teacher went crazy and dragged me here' and the principal asked him 'what did you say?' and he was like 'purple passion'. Then the principal _freaks_ and _expels_ him from school, then literally kicks him out!"

"Expels?" I asked. "Isn't that a little harsh?"

"I'm_ getting_ to that!" Mary hissed. "Where was I? Oh right, expelled. So the kid's walking home, and a police man drives by him and asks him 'hey, shouldn't you be in school?' and the kid says 'well, the redheaded Stacy told me to say a word in class and the teacher got mad and threw me in the principal's office and I told the principal who freaked and expelled me from school.' So the policeman asks, 'well, what'd you say?' and the kid says 'well, I don't...really...wanna...tell you...' and the policeman's like 'aw, c'mon kid, I'm a policeman! You can trust me!' So the kid says '...purple passion' and the policeman's like 'what?' and he says 'Purple passion!' and the policeman _freaks out_ and_ arrests him!_"

"What's so bad about purple passion?" Lou asked. Mary growled.

"Just be patient, Louie!" she exclaimed. "I'm _trying_ to tell a joke here!"

"Sorry," he said, relaxing his posture a bit. "Continue."

"Thanks. So, the kid gets arrested. He's put before the judge who asks, 'why are you here, young man?' and the boy says 'well, the redheaded stacy told me to say...a word...in class today, and the teacher got mad when I said it and threw me into the principal's office, and the principal freaked and threw me out of the school, and then I talked to the policeman and he arrested me, and now I'm hear.' The judge asked 'well, what did you say?' and the kid said 'well...I don't...really...wanna...say it' and the judge's like 'son, I'm the judge, tell me what you said' and the kid says 'purple passion'. The judge flips and sends the kid to jail for a life sentence!"

Dang. Poor kid.

"So forty years later, the dude's in jail. But he's that really really good guy that no one can imagine would get in jail. So he was in there long enough that he'd go out on some parole thing in three years, so this guard that he was really good friends with asked him exactly _why_ he was there..."

"Robin?"

"Hm?" I turned to see Z, who was smiling at me. She was also holding some papers and a pair of scissors, and seemed to be ignoring the fact that Mary had been telling a joke.

"Look!" she said, holding up a paper. It was the one she was coloring yellow—now with people added to it. "It's you and me and Cora!"

I nodded.

"And this one—" She switched papers, showing me a cut out dinosaur. "—Is Mary as a T-Rex!"

I nodded again.

"And this...Uh...This is a messed up rainbow!" she declared, holding up a paper full of multiple colored scribbles and swirls.

"Intriguing," I said. Z's brows knitted together.

"What's that mean?" she asked.

"Same as saying interesting," I said. She nodded.

"Ooooh."

Then Lou cut in with a loud "What?"

"I'm tellin' you, that's how it ends!" Mary said, resting her arms behind her head.

"That's messed up," Lou said. "Why's he hit by a _car?_"

"A car?" I asked.

"Yeah! The dude's in England, wants to talk to the queen of something, crosses the street to get a sleeping bag, and gets hit by a car!" Mary said. "Moral? Look both ways before crossing the street!"

**(**"That really _is_ messed up!"**)**

"So then what does purple passion mean?" Lou asked. Mary shrugged.

"Beats me!" she declared.

**(**"...The heck? Then what's so _bad_ about it?" Beast boy asked.

"No idea," Robin said. "Ask Cyborg. He told her the joke."

"I have no idea either," he said before the question could be asked again. "Just get on with the story, man, this is getting us nowhere."**)**

"Then _why_ tell the joke?" Lou asked, sounding a little annoyed.

"To see your reaction, of course, my dear Louie! It's absolutely _priceless!_" she said, snickering. Lou groaned, rolling his eyes as he did.

"What joke?" Z asked. Mary smiled.

"Oh! It's this joke about a kid who says a word and gets in trouble for it!"

"Is it the f—_"_

"No, not that word! He says 'purple passion'!"

"...What's that mean?"

"No idea!"

"Uh, sorry to interrupt your conversation," I said, "but I think Lou's having a seizure."

**(**"Huh?"

"Seizure?"

"_How?_"

"Getting to that."**)**

"Huh?" Mary looked at our purple haired companion, who was sweating profusely and twitching. She looked around, her gaze finally ending on Z. Or, more importantly, the scissors in Z's hands. She looked at them as well, and her skin paled.

"Ah shoot," the young girl murmured.

"Zorana," Mary began, talking slowly, "I want you to slowly walk away now."

Z did as told, tiptoeing away from the table. Lou stood up. She froze in place.

"Gimme the scissors," he said. Z shook her head.

"No," she said, shaking her head.

"Please, gimme the scissors."

"Nu-uh! Ty told me never to give you scissors! Or sharp objects! Or anything metal!" Z shouted.

"Pleeeeease?" Lou asked. ...Was he pouting?

"No!" Z shouted.

"Scissors. Please."

"No!"

"Louie, listen to her," Mary said, coming up behind him. "There is no reason why you need—"

"GIMME THE SCISSORS ALREADY, DANGIT!" Lou shouted, pouncing the young girl. Luckily, though, she dodged him just in time. He hit the floor face first.

...I had no idea what was going on.

**(**"It's goin' to the dogs!" Beast boy randomly cried. Everyone was confused. Why were the scissors so important?**)**

Z shrieked. "_Don't kill meeeee!_"

"If you give me the scissors, I won't hurt you!" Lou said, rubbing his forehead.

"But—Ty told me—"

"Just _give_ them to me already!"

And thus a mini chase scene took place with Lou chasing Z for the scissors. I looked to Mary for an expression. She laughed nervously, but it soon died down.

"Why're the scissors so important?" I asked. Mary rubbed her forehead.

"...He has a thing...fear...? Uh...sort of a want to get rid of...Shiny things? Like scissors?"

"...What?"

**(**"Huh? Shiny things?"**)**

"Hey! I'm back from scout duty!" It was Ty, coming over, happily oblivious to his little sister being chased by Lou. "We mapped out a path that'll be safe for when we move the boxes to the new ba—_who the heck let Lou see the scissors?_"

"Z," Mary said simply. Ty groaned.

"Why...?"

Not looking for an answer, he quickly ran over and picked Z up, then ran as quickly as he could away from Lou. Lou, following them, ran into AJ, who had another huge box in her arms, and the two both fell over. The box landed on its side, spilling a few things on the ground.

Ty made it away safely with Z, but not before accidentally dropping the scissors. Lou sat up and looked around. His shoulders slumped a moment later. Then he saw the scissors, grabbed them, and started...

...Gnawing on them. ...No comment.

**(**"What the heck...?"

"Like I said. _No comment_."**)**

AJ groaned, rubbing her head.

"Okay, _ow,_" she groaned, hissing slightly.

"Lou's sorry even if he's not saying it right now!" Mary shouted from our spot over here.

"A'right!" AJ shouted back, slowly standing up and going back to her box. Mary ended up running over and dragging Lou back over here. He was still gnawing on the scissors—wasn't that bad for his teeth?

The only sound was Lou's awkward nomming of the non-pointy edges of the scissors. It was miraculous that he didn't cut his mouth or break his teeth.

"Louie," Mary began, "you're gonna have to give me the sci—"

"MY SCISSORS!"

Mary sighed.

"Wanna play...Monopoly?" she asked, with a hint of detest. Lou stopped his gnawing for a second.

"Monopoly?" he asked. Mary nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "As long as...you...stop the scissor thing."

Lou seemed to be weighing his options. Mary took the scissors from him forcibly, causing him to squeal and whine. It was...unnerving.

Mary then gazed at the scissors. "Yeck. Gonna hafta disinfect these later..."

Lou shook his head. "Calm...calm...peace and calm..." he murmured, breathing in and out. He smiled awkwardly. "So...uh...Monopoly?"

Mary sighed. "So much for lazy day," she said, making sure to sneakily hand me the scissors from out of Lou's view. I gagged inwardly.

Lou nodded. "Y'know, we haven't played Monopoly for a while."

"Yeah, 'cause you always win," Mary said.

"That's why I like it."

Mary snickered. "Uh, Robbie, you comin'?"

"I'd rather...not," I said. I didn't really feel like playing Monopoly at the moment. Mary nodded.

"Alright," she said. "C'mon Louie, maybe Cora'll wanna play."

"Awesome."

And with that, they left. I set the scissors down, since I didn't really know what to do with them. As I got up and was deciding whether or not to go wander around some more, Zak appeared behind me.

"Robin!" he exclaimed. He probably expected me to jump. Not that I would. Instead, I turned around.

"Yes, Zak?" I asked.

"Tell me what's up with Suzan!"

"I thought we already went through this," I said. Zak frowned.

"But...She's all mad at the punching bag! She might punch it off the hinges! Was it something that involved punching bags?"

Bingo. She was in the training room. Thank you, Zak. I told myself if I thought over my words carefully, I could apologize without causing further trouble. Now to get rid of Zak.

"No," I said. "Nothing to do with punching bags."

I started walking away, but he followed me.

"How about books? Was it something to do with that torn out half of that Shakespeare book?"

"No."

"How about your personal life?"

"No."

"Her personal life?"

"No."

"Batman's—"

"_No. _Just leave me alone. If you do, I might be able to work this out." I paused. "On my own."

Zak whined softly, but relented. "Fiiine. Only because I care about Suzan's wellbeing more than your stupid need to do personal stuff solo." With that, he was gone.

The words stuck to my head for a while. _Only because I care about Suzan's wellbeing more than your stupid need to do personal stuff solo._

Well, he wasn't involved. If anything, Lou should have come along. But since he was currently in post-scissor-exposure-then-removal-trauma, and playing monopoly with Mary, that left him out. So there was just me.

I walked down the hallway and found the door to the training room. I heard whacking inside. Which didn't really sound like punching, but rather like someone hitting something with a pole.

I slowly opened the door. Suzan was inside, whacking the punching back with the pole from the weight lifting station. No one else was in sight. Probably for their own good.

"Suzan?" I asked, walking inside. Suzan whirled around, surprised, the pole slipping out of her grip. It headed straight for me. So I ducked. It nearly missed my head as it crashed into the wall. Luckily, it wasn't damaged too bad. The wall had a slight bruise though.

I looked back at her. Her surprised expression flattened to a serious one.

"Oh, it's you," she said, then turned back around, kicking the bag once. "What do you want?"

"Look, Suzan..." This was awkward. "Uh...I'm..."

"Sorry?" she pitched in.

"Uh, yeah. That."

**(**"Can't even apologize..."**)**

"Mm. Whatever," she said, shrugging. What. That's it?

"That's it?" I asked. She turned around.

"It's not like you're gonna tell me what you're up too, or let me help anyways. And you'll be gone soon. What difference does it make?"

**(**"Ooh, harsh."**)**

"Uh..." I couldn't think of a response at the moment.

Suzan sighed. "See? Just leave it."

The silence that followed after that was too hard to bear. I felt like I should leave, but I didn't.

Instead, I started the conversation back up.

"Suzan...I...You guys need to be _safe_, since—"

"Haven't you thought of your _own_ safety?" she asked, turning around. "From what a big deal you're making of not having us involved, you could _die. _If you die, this, here, _right now_, will cease to exist, and many of _us_ might not exist! Time can be rewritten, for better _or _for worse."

I sighed. She went back to punching the punching bag, ignoring me. This was going nowhere. Fast.

* * *

**DISCLAIMER: Teen Titans was never mine, is not mine, and never will be mine. I use my free speech to do any of this. Or...free text-writing-ability. ...Yeah. I only own what is mine.**

**I will finish this eventually. Not soon-eventually, but eventually-eventually. Just be patient. All good things come to those who wait...!**

**...Hm. Yes. All is good? *hides behind desk* ...Haha...uh...sorry? I went to go upload this today, but then fanfiction went screwy and wouldn't let me login. :( Finally got to it now. LOOK HOW LONG THIS IS, TOO. YAAAY. *claps and cheers* *...* *...excitement plz?***

**Uh...Louie can't have scissors (poor him). Zak shows up a lot at the wrong time. Suzan is stubborn. AJ is AJ. Everyone else is either oblivious, or just choosing to ignore/be uninformed about plot-related junk that involves a Suzan and Robin argument and certain secret plans. Yes, ending sucks, but I needed to get this out so the majority of you know I'm not dead. Don't know when next update will be though, sadly...**

**I'm also thinking of going back over the story and editing some little things. So there's also that. Just a little heads up incase I _do _do that. Mostly little things, nothing to plot-changing major. Hm.**

**Review?**


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